GIFT   ©F 
Gorge  B.Allen 


The  Voice  Eternal 

A  SPIRITUAL  PHILOSOPHY 

OF  THE  FINE  ART  OF 

BEING  WELL 

By 

Thomas  Parker  Boyd 


Author  of 
The  How  and  Why  of  the  Emmanuel  Movement" 


THE  "GOOD  MEDICINE"  BOOKS 
No.  2 


Berkeley,  Cal. 

THE   EMMANUEL   PRESS 
PUBLISHERS 

1912 


Copyright.  1912. 
by  Thomas  Parker  Boyd. 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

Preface       5 

I.  The  Life  Within 7 

II.  A  Shining  Pathway 15 

III.  The  Good  Medicine 23 

IV.  "The  Pronoun  of  Power" 31 

V.  The  Man  on  Crutches 43 

VI.  The  Path  of  Least  Resistance    -     -     -     -  54 

VII.  The  Parable  of  the  Christmas  Tree          -  65 

VIII.  The  Last  Thing  in  the  World    -     -     -     -  73 

IX.  The  Christ  Within 81 

X.  The   Spiritual  Basis  of  Health     -     -     -  94 

XL  The    "Word"    of   Weil-Being     -          -     -  108 

XII.  The  Law  of  Suggestion 118 

XIII.  Material  Accessories  to  Health    -     -     -     -  130 

XIV.  A   New    Generation 144 

XV.  Emotional   Chemistry     -  161 

XVI.  Formulas  and  Affirmations  for  Self  Help  168 


416524 


PREFACE. 

rT1HE  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  furnish  a 
•••  statement  of  the  Spiritual  philosophy  of  life 
with  special  reference  to  physical  health,  as 
the  author's  book,  "The  How  and  Why  of  the 
Emmanuel  Movement"  was  a  study  of  the  mental 
forces  having  to  do  with  the  same  subject. 

If  any  apology  were  needed  for  a  new  book  it 
could  be  found  in  the  fact  that  every  marked 
advance  in  human  welfare  has  had  its  literature, 
so  that  those  who  could  not  enjoy  the  instruc- 
tion and  enthusiasm  of  its  leaders  might  at  least 
be  intelligently  informed  as  to  the  underlying 
principles  and  methods  of  the  advance  movement. 
The  multiplying  of  books  in  the  new  healing  phil- 
osophy of  truth  which  has  taken  so  strong  a  place 
in  modern  religious  ideas  today  is  justified  in  the 
fact  that  the  same  truth  from  a  new  view  point, 
or  in  differing  phraseology,  as  it  is  projected 
through  different  personalities,  gives  it  an  accept- 
ance and  helpfulness  to  many  which  it  could  not 
otherwise  have. 

No  claim  is  made  for  the  originality  of  any 
ideas  here  expressed.  The  substance  of  these 
chapters  have  been  given  in  the  author's  lectures, 
to  his  classes,  and  to  his  patients  until  their  help- 
fulness has  been  clearly  demonstrated,  and  many 
urgent  requests  have  been  made  to  have  them  put 
into  more  permanent  and  available  form. 

These  chapters  are  sent  forth  in  the  hope  that 
they  may  bring  help  to  a  steadily  increasing  com- 
pany of  people  in  the  church  who  are  drifting 
away  in  search  of  those  material  benefits  upon 


^Preface 


which  so  little  emphasis  has  been  laid  by  the 
church  that  they  have  felt  that  the  church  no 
longer  offers  them  the  comforts  so  much  needed, 
and  which  they  feel  they  have  a  right  to  expect 
in  this  strenuous  age  of  living.  Also  to  the  other 
class  in  the  church  whose  loyalty  to  her  who  is 
the  mother  of  us  all  which  will  not  allow  them  to 
wander  afield  in  search  of  the  truth  and  help 
they  need,  and  who  suffer  needlessly  because  they 
cannot  give  up  so  much  that  is  tried  and  true 
for  that  which  is  not  tested  by  time.  The  purpose 
is  to  interpret  the  truth  in  the  language  of  mod- 
ern thought  so  that  these  good  people  may  see  that 
every  blessing  of  the  good  God,  both  temporal  and 
spiritual,  is  available  right  where  they  are  with- 
out the  necessity  of  forsaking  the  leadership  of 
the  trained  ministers  of  religion  for  that  of  self- 
appointed  vendors  of  vagaries,  and  without  de- 
priving themselves  of  the  advice  of  trained  phy- 
sicians which  they  often  need.  Many  of  the  medi- 
cal profession  are  using  more  and  more  the  agen- 
cies of  mental  and  spiritual  forces,  and  their  con- 
tributions to  the  advance  of  a  sound  mental  ther- 
apeutics is  known  to  anyone  who  cares  to  know, 
although  it  is  usually  marked  by  a  conservatism 
born  probably  of  an  instinctive  distrust  of  illog- 
ical statement  and  unreasoning  enthusiasm.  If 
these  purposes  are  served  the  author  will  feel 
amply  repaid  for  the  effort. 

THOMAS  PARKER  BOYD. 
BERKELEY,  CAL.,  1912. 


The  Voice  Eternal. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  LIFE  WITHIN. 

LOVE  of  life  is  the  primal  impulse. 
Self-preservation  is  the  first  law  of 
nature.  "As  thyself"  is  the  final  test  of 
man's  noblest  impulse — love.  The  record 
of  Earth's  greatest  example  of  altruism 
does  not  suppress  the  fact  that  it  was 
"for  the  joy  that  was  set  before  him" 
that  "he  endured  the  cross."  Existence 
is  sweet,  and  if  we  consent  to  its  limita- 
tion in  one  sphere  it  is  with  the  distinct 
understanding  that  it  will  have  propor- 
tionally larger  action  in  another  sphere, 
for  the  abundant  life  is  the  flying  goal 
toward  which  we  move.  This  instinct  for 
complete  life  is  constitutional  with  us; 
we  can  no  more  deny  it  than  we  can  deny 
ourselves.  The  pilgrim  across  the  world 
of  sense  and  sensation  voices  only  one 
cry— "life."  And  what  is  life?  The 
answer  varies  according  to  one's  experi- 
ence of  living.  "It  is  a  vapour,"  answers 
one.  "  It  is  the  response  to  environment, ' ' 


8  The     Voice     Eternal 

says  another.  "It  is  to  know  God/7  is  the 
response  of  still  another.  "It  is  the  grati- 
fication of  every  impulse/'  "It  is  only 
good  morning,  good  night,  and  good  bye" 
are  other  answers.  "Life  is  a  mode  of 
motion,"  says  my  scientific  friend.  And 
what  is  motion?  "A  manifestation  of 
force."  And  what  is  force?  "Active 
energy ' '  —and  that  ?  ' 4  The  unseen  poten- 
tiality that  fills  and  constitutes  all  things 
—an  universal  substance  out  of  which  all 
material  things  appear,  and  back  into 
which  they  disappear  as  unseen  elements 
of  energy  that  defy  analysis.  Of  this  in- 
finitely extended  substance  all  things  are 
made  and  by  it  they  consist."  Now  this 
view  harmonizes  with  the  statement  of 
that  ancient  theologian  and  philosopher 
who  said,  "The  things  which  are  seen 
were  not  made  of  things  which  do  ap- 
pear"; and  furthermore,  "The  things 
which  are  seen  are  temporal,  but  the 
things  which  are  not  seen  are  eternal."  To 
this  infinite  substance  acting  with  benefi- 
cent purpose  and  intelligent  procedure, 
we  attribute  personality,  and  say,  "of  him 
are  all  things."  Call  it  Infinite  sub- 
stance, or  mind,  or  spirit,  it  is  the  source 


The    Life     Within  9 

and  the  goal  of  existence.  We  came  from 
it.  We  return  to  it.  In  this  excursion 
out  from  it  we  find  set  all  the  elements 
of  a  drama,  ranging  all  the  way  from 
the  comic  to  the  tragic,  accordingly  as  we 
take  life's  shifting  scenes  too  lightly  or 
too  seriously.  It  takes  most  people  a  life- 
time to  discover  that,  to  our  senses,  things 
stand  in  inverse  ratio  to  their  reality  and 
value.  To  our  sense-perception,  matter 
and  its  associated  sensations  of  ease,  pain, 
pleasure,  etc.,  are  the  dominant  things, 
while  to  mental  and  spiritual  perceptions, 
mind  with  its  attendant  products  of 
thought  and  truth  are  the  supreme  facts. 
Matter  is  changing  and  transient,  but 
substance  or  spirit  is  unchanging  and 
eternal. 

And  this  Infinite  substance,  spirit, 
mind,  life,  the  source  and  content  of  all 
things,  is  one.  It  exhibits  itself  in  myriad 
forms,  but  be  it  star  or  stone,  herb,  bird, 
or  man,  it  is  one  life,  one  substance.  Just 
as  the  ocean  whose  substance  fills,  and 
whose  heart-throb  pulsates  throughout 
every  gulf,  bay,  cove,  and  strait,  leaving 
each  its  individuality  and  relative  impor- 
tance, according  to  the  volume  of  ocean 


10  The    Voice     Eternal 

it  expresses,  yet  retaining  its  claim  on 
each  as  part  of  the  whole,  so  does  this 
Infinite  substance  find  form  and  expres- 
sion in  innumerable  individual  cases,  each 
important  according  to  the  degree  of  the 
Infinite  life  finding  expression,  yet  each 
a  part  of  the  One  life.  And  the  law  of 
expressing  the  Infinite  life  divides  these 
individuals  into  many  varieties  of  being. 
For  example,  the  living  rock  obeys  one 
part  of  the  law  of  expression,  and  it  has 
inertia  or  rest.  The  worm  obeys  two  parts 
of  the  law,  and  it  adds  motion  to  its  ex- 
pression of  life.  The  bird  obeys  three 
parts  of  the  law  and  adds  flight  and  song ; 
and  the  more  complex  the  organism,  the 
greater  number  of  laws  it  can  obey,  the 
higher  is  the  order  of  life,  because  the 
larger  and  richer  is  the  expression  and 
experience  of  the  infinite  life.  Now  man, 
the  most  complex  of  all  material  organ- 
isms, can  respond  to  more  of  these  laws, 
and  hence  gives  the  most  complete  ex- 
pression of  the  Infinite  life,  for  above 
the  animal  kind,  he  adds  reason,  judg- 
ment, imagination,  faith,  hope,  love,  and 
other  attributes  and  qualities  of  the  di- 
vine life  unknown  save  in  elemental  forms 


The     Life     Within  11 

to  the  lower  orders  of  existence.  Now 
these  faculties  go  to  make  up  the  image 
of  the  Creator  within  us,  and  these  moral 
and  spiritual  qualities  are  concrete  ex- 
pressions in  us  of  the  divine  character 
which  must  otherwise  remain  a  dreamy 
abstraction. 

There  is  nothing  in  us  that  we  did  not 
receive  from  the  Infinite  source,  "the  Fa- 
ther of  the  spirits  of  all  flesh."  Nothing- 
has  been  evolved  in  man,  nor  will  be,  that 
was  not  involved  in  the  first  living  cell. 
Our  entire  equipment  for  expressing  the 
divine  life,  together  with  "the  power  both 
to  will  and  to  do"  is  of  that  Infinite  sub- 
stance whose  image  we  are.  Yet  because 
of  the  accident  of  time  or  place  or  condi- 
tion of  birth,  the  influence  of  heredity,  or 
other  causes,  few  of  us  express  it  in  equal 
degree.  We  have  to  confess  that  one  man 
manifests  more  of  the  divine  life  than 
another,  because  he  furnishes,  consciously 
or  otherwise,  a  better  channel  through 
which  the  divine  life  may  flow.  He  has 
more  avenues  of  expression,  and  is  able 
to  keep  them  open,  and  hence  is  a  better 
medium  through  which  the  divine  life 
may  speak.  Or  to  use  a  technical  figure 


12  The     Voice     Eternal 

of  commercial  life,  as  the  amperage  and 
voltage — one  having  reference  to  the  vol- 
ume and  the  other  to  the  intensity  of  the 
electric  current — determine  the  action 
and  results  of  that  subtle  force,  so  in  a 
life  of  large  endowment,  of  many  gifts, 
of  ten  talents,  the  amperage  is  large,  and 
the  possibilities  for  expression  of  the  di- 
vine life  are  great;  but  if  the  voltage  is 
low,  the  sense  of  duty  is  blunted,  the  esti- 
mation of  privilege  is  small,  the  aim  of 
life  is  ignoble,  then  the  dynamics  of  the 
will  are  inoperative  and  the  results  are 
small.  If  in  another  the  amperage  is 
small,  the  capacity  limited,  the  gifts  few, 
yet  the  voltage  is  high,  sense  of  duty  ex- 
alted, ideals  noble,  purposes  inflexible, 
then  the  dynamics  of  the  will  enable  him 
to  blaze  and  burn  his  way  through  the 
world  like  a  live  wire  of  Omnipotence 
that  he  is.  Such  accomplish  more,  mani- 
fest more  of  the  divine  life  than  the  large 
amperage,  but  low  voltage  people.  But 
does  the  ten-talent  man,  large  amperage, 
have  correspondingly  high  voltage,  we 
shall  find  such  an  expression  of  the  divine 
life  as  to  brand  him  a  genius,  and  write 
his  name  in  the  gallery  of  the  immortals. 


The     Life     Within  13 

In  other  words,  the  endowments  of  a 
man's  life  are  things  determined  outside 
of  himself.  His  native  qualifications  come 
into  life  with  him,  but  the  potency  of  his 
life  for  results  is  determined  within  him- 
self. The  development  of  his  gifts  to 
their  utmost  capacity,  the  cultivation  of 
nobility  of  purpose,  the  concentration  of 
his  energies  to  the  chosen  tasks,  in 
fact,  all  that  means  the  mastery  of  self, 
and  the  mastery  of  the  world  forces 
about  him,  are  contained  in  the  sov- 
ereignty of  his  own  will.  With  the  am- 
perage of  life  he  has  no  concern,  with 
its  voltage  he  has  everything  to  do.  He 
can  do  anything  that  he  wants  to  do  and 
believes  that  he  can  do,  the  very  fact  that 
he  feels  the  impulse  being  the  sure  sign 
that  the  life  within  him  inspires  the  de- 
sire, and  at  the  same  time  promises  the 
power  of  fulfillment.  He  can  be  anything 
he  desires,  for  his  desire  is  the  longing 
of  the  Infinite  life  to  find  expression 
through  him  in  that  special  way.  He  has 
only  to  call  out  the  forces  of  the  life  with- 
in and  set  them  to  the  task,  knowing  that 
"  faithful  is  he  that  hath  promised  who 
also  will  do  it."  And  herein  lies  the  solu- 


14  The    Voice     Eternal 

tion  to  the  riddle  of  existence — To  take 
a  part  of  the  Infinite  life,  give  it  individu- 
ality by  incarnating  it  in  human  flesh, 
multiplying  and  projecting  it  through  hu- 
man personality,  polishing  and  refining  it 
through  the  vicissitudes  of  material  en- 
vironment, until  it  comes  to  express  so 
much  of  the  Infinite  character  that  to 
have  seen  it  is  to  have  seen  God.  And  it 
must  be  held  as  a  cardinal  principle  that 
the  capacity  to  express  life  is  an  expan- 
sive thing,  as  surely  as  the  power  to  do 
so  is  a  cumulative  force.  The  latent  pos- 
sibilities of  divinity  are  in  us  awaiting  the 
task  of  development.  They  are  unlimited, 
so  that  a  man  knows  not  what  he  shall 
be,  but  if  he  accepts  his  task  and  does  it, 
he  shall  be  like  God. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   SHINING   PATHWAY. 

LIFE  is  not  stationary,  nor  can  be.  The 
living  body  is  forever  changing  by 
the  ceaseless  vibrations  of  the  life  within. 
The  mental  powers  are  forever  built  up 
or  depleted  by  the  thoughts  that  flow  from 
them,  and  the  truth  that  is  discovered  by 
them,  and  that  reacts  upon  them.  The 
bronze  figure  that  stands  in  the  midst  of 
the  park  fountain  through  whose  uplifted 
fingers  a  stream  of  water  rises  until  it 
breaks  into  a  mist  and  falls  to  the  pool 
below,  is  a  picture  of  a  human  life  through 
which  the  tides  of  the  divine  life  with  its 
truth  and  power  move  forever  onward. 
They  make  no  tarrying.  Certain  by- 
products which  go  to  make  up  character 
abide,  and  even  character  is  a  progres- 
sive thing. 

To  build  up  and  preserve  his  body  man 
uses  the  material  forms  that  are  com- 
pounds of  the  infinite  substance.  In  the 
using  it  yields  up  certain  elements  of  life 
that  keep  the  body  living.  The  food  he 
eats,  the  water  he  drinks,  the  air 
he  breathes,  all  are  yielding  up  their  life 


16  The     Voice     Eternal 

to  him.    This  is  everywhere  true,  for  the 
living  rock  yields  up  its  life  to  the  soil, 
the  soil  yields  up  its  life  to  vegetation, 
vegetation  in  turn  to  the  animal,  and  the 
animal  yields  up  its  life  to  man,  and  man 
yields  up  his  life  to  and  for  his  fellow,  and 
this  but  illustrates  the  method  by  which 
the  Infinite  life  ministers  to  man  of  its 
boundless  store,  and  expresses  itself  in  his 
body,  disclosing  a  shining    pathway    up 
which  man  moves  to  God,  for  the  mental 
and  spiritual  life  are  ministered  after  the 
same   principle.     Not   only   was  man   a 
thought  before  he  was  a  thinker  but  he 
continues  to  have  his  growing  mental  life 
by   feeding  on   the   living  truths  which 
other  men  have  discovered,  and  for  which 
they  have  laid  dowrn  their  lives,  and  also 
on  those  which  he  discovers  by  responding 
to  the  vibrations  of  that  Infinite  life  with- 
in him,  and  for  which  he  is  ready  to  lay 
down  his  life.    All  his  emotions,  finer  feel- 
ings, aspirations,   and  longing,   and  the 
more  spiritual  activities  are  responses  to 
the  stimulus  of  the  divine  character  find- 
ing expression  in  him.    We  are  now  ready 
to  quote,  with  the  assurance  of  its  mean- 
ing and  truth,  a  saying    of  the  apostle, 


The     Shining     Pathway  17 

"In  God  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being."  Man  lives  out  his  life  in  the  life 
of  God,  and  he  cannot  live  apart  from 
him.  His  business  in  the  world  is  to  ex- 
press the  human  life  in  the  terms  of  God. 
That  is  his  task,  although  he  may  make 
sorry  work  of  it.  He  may  turn  his  divin- 
ity to  diabolism,  but  he  can  never  success- 
fully deny  his  birthright,  nor  permanently 
quench  the  flame  of  the  divine  life,  for  God 
cannot  die,  nor  can  these  divine  attributes 
be  so  stifled  or  eradicated  that  they  will 
not  rise  again  to  struggle  for  mastery, 
and  at  last  find  perfect  expression.  We 
are  living  out  our  lives  in  the  life  of  God. 
Now  the  converse  of  the  foregoing  is 
also  true.  God  lives  out  his  life  in  the  life 
of  the  world  and  all  things  therein,  his 
highest  expression  being  man.  As  the 
mountain  is  wrorn  down  by  erosion  until 
the  granite  becomes  the  soil  of  the  valley, 
clothed  with  vegetation,  radiant  with 
color,  fragrant  with  odors  and  golden 
with  fruitage,  so  is  the  material  expres- 
sion of  divinity  moved  up  into  its  highest 
form,  man,  and  on  him  and  through  him 
the  divine  life  plays  until  his  ani- 
malism, and  crudities,  and  credulities,  are 


18  The    Voice     Eternal 

smoothed  out,  and  his  human  conscious- 
ness blooms  out  into  God-consciousness, 
and  the  fruits  of  the  living  spirit  in  him 
are  manifest.  It  may  sound  easy,  but  the 
process  is  difficult.  God  is  not  having  a 
good  time.  It  has  taken  heat  and  cold, 
earthquakes  and  aeons  of  time  to  get  the 
earth  ready  to  manifest  forth  men,  and 
he  has  been  a  long  time  trying  to  wrestle 
the  world  of  men  up  to  princedom,  and 
although  the  task  is  slow,  the  end  is  sure. 
In  every  age  some  man  has  attained  it, 
such  as  Enoch,  who  walked  with  God, 
Abraham,  who  was  a  friend  of  God,  and 
Jacob,  who  was  a  prince  of  God. 

To  make  the  thought  still  more  definite 
and  significant,  it  is  said  at  least  three 
times  in  the  Old  Testament  that  "God 
clothed  himself  with  a  man,"  in  each  case 
for  a  specific  purpose,  and  also  to  show 
to  their  generation,  and  to  us,  what  God 
can  do  for  a  man  who  comes  to  realize  his 
own  divine  nature,  and  will  allow  the  In- 
finite life  of  God  to  have  full  expression 
in  him.  The  tragedy  of  it  is  that  few  of 
us  accept  our  birthright  in  all  that 
it  means,  and  fewer  still  are  bold  enough 
to  enter  into  and  claim  our  heritage  of 


The     Shining    Pathway  19 

God  dwelling  in  us.  For  in  very  truth 
he  lives  out  his  life  in  the  life  of  the  world 
and  of  man.  In  us  he  lives  and  moves 
and  has  his  being.  It  is  in  the  sons  of  men 
that  the  divine  life  finds  perfect  expres- 
sion in  the  terms  of  humanity.  Divine  love, 
and  pity,  and  compassion,  and  all  other 
similar  qualities  are,  and  must  remain, 
unknown  quantities  to  us  save  as  we  see 
and  know  them  in  the  lives  of  men  with 
whom  God  clothes  himself. 

The  great  teacher,  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
kept  before  his  disciples  the  secret  of  that 
life  of  his,  so  simple  in  its  setting  and  so 
marvelous  in  its  power,  by  repeatedly  de- 
claring that  the  words  which  he  spoke  and 
the  works  which  he  did,  were  not  his  but 
his  Father's.  Now  as  God  clothed  himself 
with  that  man  of  Nazareth,  and  made  him 
to  manifest  forth  the  oneness  of  the  hu- 
man and  the  divine  life,  so  Jesus  prayed 
that  his  disciples  might  realize  their  one- 
ness with  God  as  he  realized  it,  Yet  with 
all  the  perversity  of  human  misunder- 
standing, we  misread  the  words  and  try  to 
foster  a  oneness  with  our  fellows  which  is 
impossible  until  we  first  realize  our  one- 
ness with  God,  which  in  the  mind  of  Jesus 


20  The     Voice    Eternal 

was  of  supreme  importance.  This  alone 
could  enable  them  to  do  the  work  that  he 
did,  and  even  greater  works  than  he  did, 
so  the  burden  of  his  most  wonderful  re- 
corded prayer  was  for  the  realization  of 
this  oneness.  Here,  then,  is  an  enigma 
in  the  mathematics  of  spiritual  life,  that 
one  and  one  make  one,  never  more,  never 
less,  and  He  is  the  one,  or  you  are  the  one 
as  you  have  the  boldness  to  claim  it.  This 
is  a  flying  goal.  Man  never  is,  but  al- 
ways to  be  blest. 

Of  all  those  qualities  of  character  that 
place  the  stamp  of  the  divine  charactei 
upon  man,  such  as  love,  joy,  peace,  pa- 
tience, etc.,  few  of  us  bring  to  any  degree 
of  perfection  more  than  one  or  two.  Of 
all  man's  forty  and  more  faculties  only 
one,  two  or  three  at  most  reach  any  degree 
of  perfection  or  fruition  in  this  sphere  of 
existence,  but  we  see  enough  to  know  what 
we  shall  be,  when  perfect  oneness  is  real- 
ized and  manifested,  when  every  divine 
quality  shall  find  perfect  expression,  and 
every  faculty  shall  reach  its  zenith,  mani- 
festing the  power  that  worketh  in  us,  for 
it  discloses  a  shining  pathway  of  attain- 
ment which  shall  share  here  and  hereafter 


The     Shining     Pathway  21 

the  throne  of  the  divine  power.  Here,  be<- 
cause  the  consciousness  of  this  divine  dig- 
nity begins  here,  "Beloved  now  are  we 
the  Sons  of  God,  and  it  doth  not  yet  ap- 
pear what  we  shall  be,  but  we  know  that 
we  shall  be  like  him  when  he  shall  ap- 
pear." Now  this  appearance  is  not  some 
flaming  apparition  in  the  sky,  appealing 
to  the  optic  nerve,  but  rather  a  subjective 
apprehension  by  the  person  who  believes 
God  to  be  the  Supreme  Good,  and  hon- 
estly desires  to  know  him,  that  he  may  car- 
ry out  his  perfect  will.  Of  such  said  Je- 
sus, "Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart  for 
they  shall  see  God."  Seeing  God,  he  sees 
everything  else  in  its  true  proportions.  He 
sees  in  himself  the  image  of  God.  He 
knows  that  his  character,  his  purposes, 
and  his  whole  life  are  at  one  with  God.  He 
sees  that  divine  image  in  every  man.  Lov- 
ing God  he  must  love  his  image.  Hatred 
can  no  longer  have  a  place  in  him.  Fear 
is  cast  out  by  a  perfect  love.  Now  are 
we  the  sons  of  God.  \ 

A  Sunday  school  teacher  described  the 
character  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  without 
calling  his  name  and  asked  her  class  who  it 
was,  was  surprised  when  one  little  hand 


22  The    Voice    Eternal 

went  up  and  one  little  voice  said,  " That's 
my  mamma — it  sounds  just  like  her."  The 
child  was  right  for  he  was  "the  express 
image  of  God's  person"  and  so  was 
mother,  for  the  pure  mind  of  the  child 
could  see  no  difference  between  the  love 
of  God  exhibited  in  mother  and  the  love 
of  God  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  for  the  sim- 
ple reason  that  there  is  no  difference.  "It 
doth  not  appear  what  we  shall  be."  The 
perfect  manifestation  is  here  in  Its  incep- 
tion, and  hereafter  in  its  completeness. 
All  of  man's  faculties  are  to  be 
brought  to  completeness.  For  that 
purpose  all  the  years  of  time  and 
the  aeons  of  eternity  are  God's  and  ours. 
All  the  worlds  now  and  to  be,  all  the  poten- 
cies now  at  work  and  yet  to  unfold  are  for 
this  one  thing, — to  bring  man  to  full  God- 
likeness.  We  have  entered  a  way  of  prog- 
ress that  has  no  limit  to  its  advance,  a 
shining  pathway  through  the  earth  and 
heaven  that  has  no  noontide  height  from 
which  to  slowly  and  sadly  decline  but  that 
moves  onward  and  upward  to  the  throne  of 
God,  and  the  perfect  day. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   GOOD   MEDICINE 

A  MAN  there  was  who  had  lost  sight  of 
his  parentage  and  lived  for  years  as 
an  orphan.  One  day  he  had  an  invasion 
of  divine  joy  when  he  learned  that  his 
father,  a  wealthy  and  benevolent  man,  still 
lived  and  yearned  for  his  son  that  he 
might  bestow  upon  him  the  things  that 
were  his  by  right.  And  the  dawn  of  this 
truth  of  the  indwelling  life  of  God,  the 
inherent  oneness  of  all  life  in  Him,  not 
only  brings  to  the  mind  a  joy  that  "doeth 
good  like  a  medicine,"  but  it  ushers  in  the 
full  day  of  an  heritage  which  alone  is 
adequate  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  life 
within  us. 

Having  accepted  the  fact  of  his  divine 
heritage,  and  having  fully  satisfied  him- 
self as  to  his  title,  he  begins  to  take  an  in- 
ventory of  its  content.  The  first  of  these 
is  that  God  is  love,  truth,  health,  peace, 
power,  plenty,  and  that  hatred,  fear,  false- 
hood, sickness,  disease,  weakness,  and  pov- 
erty can  have  no  place  in  the  perfectly 
manifested  life  of  the  Infinite  God.  Apart 
from  his  material  forms  of  expression, 


24  The     Voice     Eternal 

God  is  not  sick,  neither  has  he  pain,  nor 
disease,  nor  any  such  thing. 

In  connection  with  this  process  of  work- 
ing out  the  Infinite  life  into  material  ex- 
pression, we  have  to  accept  the  patent  fact 
of  pain  and  disease  of  the  body  and  dis- 
tempers of  the  mind.  We  can  no  more 
deny  the  fact  of  them  than  we  can  deny 
the  reality  of  earthquakes  in  rending  the 
earth's  crust  and  upheaving  mountains, 
or  the  reality  of  the  pain  caused  by  the 
tooth  of  time  in  wearing  do\vn  those  moun- 
tains into  fertile  valleys,  ready  for  rich 
harvests.  We  may  turn  an  intellectual 
somersault  and  deny  the  reality  of  pain, 
by  denying  the  reality  of  the  material 
forms  in  which  pain  is  felt.  Let  it  be 
granted  for  a  moment  that  the  seen  things 
are  temporal,  it  does  not  alter  the  fact 
that  they  are  forms  of  expression  of  the 
Infinite  Substance  or  Life,  and  their  real- 
ity cannot  be  questioned  even  though  their 
forms  change  or  disappear.  And  even  if 
our  philosophy  could  persuade  us  of  the 
non-reality  of  pain,  our  experiences  of 
toothache,  ague,  or  ptomaine  poisoning  are 
sufficient  to  smash  our  ideal  philosophy, 
unless  we  have  lost  the  rational  faculties. 


The     Good     Medicine  25 

We  have  to  accept  pain,  etc.,  as  inev- 
itable attendants  upon  the  transformation 
going  on  in  the  material  life  of  God  round 
about  us  and  in  us.  And  this  fact  becomes 
at  once  an  interpretation  of  our  experien- 
ces and  a  challenge  to  us  to  accept  and  en- 
ter upon  our  heritage.  This  was  evidently 
the  view  of  St.  Paul  when  he  said,  "For 
we  know  that  the  whole  creation  groaneth 
and  travaileth  together  in  pain  till  now 
.  .  .  waiting  for  the  manifestation  of  the 
Sons  of  God."  Everywhere  there  is  the 
challenge  to  move  up  to  higher  expression 
of  divine  life,  and  always  that  movement 
is  attended  with  pain.  Take  the  seed  you 
plant  in  the  springtime  in  the  soft,  warm 
loam  of  earth.  It  is  a  life  bound  up  by  a 
shell,  narrow  and  limited.  Pretty  soon 
sun  and  rain  and  the  influences  of  the 
earth  move  upon  it,  and  the  life  within  the 
seed  hears  the  call  to  come  up  into  higher 
life  expression,  and  there  is  such  a  re- 
sponse that  at  last  it  can  be  no  longer 
bound,  and  there  comes  the  pain  of  a  new 
birth,  the  seed  splits  its  shell  and  comes 
forth  out  of  littleness  and  narrowness  to 
larger  expression  of  life  in  beauty,  fra- 
grance, and  fruitage.  So  a  bird's  egg  moves 


26  The     Voice     Eternal 

up  from  a  life  within  a  shell  into  the  larg- 
er expression  of  life  as  found  in  song  and 
flight,  but  it  is  attended  by  the  agony  of  a 
birth.  Now  man  himself  is  a  creature  of 
time,  of  the  senses,  and  of  animalism.  His 
experiences  are  mostly  of  his  material  life. 
One  day  there  begins  to  play  upon  the  life 
within  him  the  truth  that  makes  men  free 
through  a  song,  a  prayer,  a  beautiful  ser- 
vice, or  a  good  life,  until  he  hears  the  call 
of  the  divine  life  and  there  comes  the  hour 
of  decision,  the  agony  of  a  new  birth,  and 
he  becomes  a  citizen  of  eternity  conscious 
of  the  indwelling  God. 

At  every  step  of  this  moving  upward 
into  larger  life,  from  seed  to  man,  pain  is 
seen  to  be  an  attendant  fact.  The  seed  or 
bird  or  man  could  well  say,  "  Thank  you 
pain;  by  you  I  have  come  into  higher, 
larger  life."  Pain  and  disease  may  be 
results,  but  they  are  not  punishments. 
Rather  shall  we  think  of  them  as  signal 
calls  announcing  wrong  conditions  and 
challenging  us  to  move  up  out  of  them. 
They  are  things  we  have  received  from 
our  ancestors ;  or  have  inherited  from  past 
years  of  wrong  thinking  and  wrong  living ; 
or  violations  of  the  laws  of  life,  consciously 


The     Good     Medicine  27 

or  otherwise,  whose  penalties  have  staid 
with  us  over-long  because  we  did  not  learn 
their  meaning,  till  they  have  become  en- 
throned in  us  and  obsessed  us,  and  having 
some  psychic  quality,  they  refuse  to  "go 
out  into  the  deep"  without  a  struggle,  or 
a  mighty,  authoritative  command. 

Accepting  the  heritage  of  your  oneness 
with  the  Infinite  life,  talk  with  yourself : 
"Why  pain?  God  who  dwelleth  in  me  has 
not  pain,  nor  is  he  sick,  nor  has  he  dis- 
ease. If  I  have  it,  it  is  the  infallible  symp- 
tom that  the  Infinite  life  is  leading  up  to 
some  higher  expression  of  itself  that  as 
yet  it  does  not  fully  manifest  within  me. 
There  is  some  obstruction  in  heart,  mind, 
will,  or  imagination,  that  impedes  the  full 
tides  of  the  Infinite  life  with  His  resistless 
health  and  perfect  peace.  It  is  a  call  to 
prepare  for  a  fuller  invasion  of  the  divine 
life.  The  obstruction  must  be  found  and 
removed.  It  may  be  error  of  thought  or 
action,  one  or  both.  I  set  myself  now  to 
the  task  of  setting  to  right  the  inner  re- 
cesses of  my  life,  so  that  there  shall  be 
perfect  harmony  with  the  divine  life,  and 
hence  perfect  health." 

In  this  process  of  opening  up  the  chan- 


28  The     Voice    Eternal 

nels  for  the  flow  of  the  Infinite  life,  there 
is  as  much  to  unlearn  as  to  learn.  A  good 
memory  is  invaluable,  while  a  good  f  orget- 
tery  is  above  the  price  of  rubies.  The 
trouble  is  that  we  forget  the  things  wre 
should  remember,  and  vice  versa.  Let  us 
now  unlearn  some  things.  Most  of  our 
ideas  of  right  and  wrong  have  been  learned 
under  the  tutelage  of  "Thou  shalt  not." 
As  long  as  we  live  under  this  negative  mo- 
tive, we  invite  fear  and  worry  and  the 
whole  brood  of  attendant  ills ;  and  under 
the  reign  of  fear,  the  things  we  fear  sooner 
or  later  come  upon  us.  Our  fear  is  the 
invitation  to  them  to  come  in  and  stay. 
We  need  to  shift  our  point  of  view,  the 
motiving  of  our  acts  over  to  the  positive 
side  of  things.  "Thou  shalt"  is  the  posi- 
tive, constructive  side  of  the  divine  law 
that  makes  love  and  not  fear  the  motive, 
and  this  is  the  highest  expression  of  the 
divine  life  within  you — "God  is  Love." 
Dwelling  here  in  the  motive  of  love,  you 
can  stand  at  the  gates  of  the  City  of  Man's 
Soul  and  meet  all  such  visitors  as  fear  and 
worry,  with  such  calmness  and  assurance 
of  the  presence  of  Infinite  love  and  peace 
and  power  that  they  will  vanish  away  and 
leave  you  in  peace. 


The     Good     Medicine  29 

And  this  impelling  force  of  love  will  not 
be  a  passing  spasm  of  emotional  joy,  but 
a  glorious  joy  of  service,  a  sense  of  divine 
right  and  place  in  the  world.  The  common- 
est task  becomes  clothed  with  the  charac- 
ter of  a  sacrament ;  work  will  have  a  new 
dignity;  rest  a  new  refreshment;  sleep 
a  sublime  renewing;  eating^  will  be  no 
longer  a  bolting  of  things  down  with  just 
enough  chewing  to  keep  the  food  from 
scratching  the  skin  off  the  throat,  or  for 
mere  gustatory  pleasure,  but  a  process 
whose  thoroughness  measures  an  imparta- 
tion  of  the  divine  life.  Keeping  the  laws 
of  life  will  not  be  a  perfunctory  winning  a 
bonbon,  or  "getting  home  to  heaven/7  but 
the  spontaneous  action  of  love  that  finds 
obedience  to  the  law  the  only  means  of  per- 
fectly expressing  the  divine  life  in  us. 

Prepare  then  for  this  invasion  of  love, 
health,  peace,  and  power  by  opening  every 
avenue  of  life  for  the  flood  tides  of  the  In- 
finite Being.  Put  away  fear,  worry, 
doubt,  tradition,  negatives  and  self- 
limitations  of  every  kind.  Replace 
them  with  positives.  Do  it  now.  If 
you  have  accepted  the  fact  of  your 
oneness  with  the  Infinite  life,  yet  do 


30  The     Voice     Eternal 

not  realize  the  experience  of  its  perfect 
peace  and  power  and  health,  do  not  try  to 
force  these  any  more  than  you  would  try 
to  force  darkness  out  of  a  room.  Calmly 
hold  before  your  mind  seven  times  a  day 
this  perfect  ideal  as  yours  by  right  and 
choice,  and  that  must  be  yours  by  realiza- 
tion if  you  earnestly  desire,  fully  believe, 
and  firmly  will  it  so  to  be;  and  just  as 
sunlight  presses  upon  the  world  to  replace 
the  darkness  with  light,  so  does  the 
Infinite  press  upon  you  from  every  side, 
through  every  avenue  to  banish  pain  and 
disease  and  gloom  and  fear  and  worry, 
by  filling  you  with  ease  and  peace  and  joy 
and  hope  and  cheerfulness.  Just  "  clear 
the  darkened  windows" —darkened  by 
fear  and  doubt  and  error — "and  let  the 
blessed  sunlight  in."  The  truth  is,  most 
people  who  fail  to  enter  into  a  realization 
of  oneness  with  the  Infinite  do  so  because 
they  have  been  too  busy  looking  for  some 
imaginary  line  to  cross  that  divides  the 
human  from  the  divine.  There  is  no  line 
in  fact.  Let  a  man  calmly  accept  the  fact, 
claim  the  fact,  declare  it,  and  he  will  in- 
evitably pass  out  of  human-consciousness 
into  God-consciousness. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

"THE  PRONOUN  OF  POWER." 

THIS  is  the  age  of  Egoism  gone  to  seed ; 
the  assertion  of  the  ego  as  the  most 
important  thing  in  the  world;  the  adjust- 
ment of  all  facts  to  the  self ;  the  converg- 
ing of  all  the  lines  of  perspective  to  find 
a  common  point  in  the  self.  Just  what 
this  self  is  has  not  been  determined.  It 
refuses  to  go  under  the  microscope,  or  sub- 
mit to  chemical  analysis  or  mental  solu- 
tion. But  it  does  submit  to  be  talked  about, 
and  so  pleasant  is  that  experience,  that  it 
proceeds  to  talk  about  itself.  It  is  ludi- 
crous to  hear  a  neurasthenic  dwell  upon 
his  woes  and  ills  and  troubles,  real  or  im- 
aginary— mostly  the  latter.  One  might 
smile  were  not  the  havoc  wrought  so  pa- 
thetic. But  egotism,  this  thing  of  dwelling 
so  much  on  oneself,  is  a  common  fault  with 
a  multitude  who  are  not  classed  as  "nerv- 
ous. ' '  Nothing  bores  any  of  us  so  much  as 
to  have  someone  insist  on  talking  about 
himself,  when  we  want  to  talk  about  our- 
selves. And  egotism  reaches  the  limit  of 
sufferance  when  it  takes  on  an  air  of  mock 
humility  and  the  language  of  pious  cant, 


32  The     Voice    Eternal 

and  talks  in  public  and  private  of  "poor 
unworthy  me,"  and  "I'm  a  poor,  weak 
worm  of  the  dust."  They  tell  the  truth, 
and  as  long  as  they  think  and  talk  that 
way,  they  will  stay  that  way. 

Now  egoism  may  also  pave  the  way  to 
your  real  part  and  place  in  the  world. 
Lift  up  your  head,  put  out  your  chest, 
walk  a  little  heavier  on  your  heels,  accept 
your  nature,  character,  and  destiny  as 
divine.  Let  your  egoism  find  vent  in  union 
with  the  Infinite  Ego.  Take  your  place  in 
the  world  as  a  son  of  God.  As  one  in  whose 
flesh  and  life  God  walks  among  men.  Does 
it  seem  a  far  cry  from  what  you  actually 
realize  and  manifest  of  this  incarnate  life, 
to  what  the  ideal  is?  To  what  you  may 
be?  It  is  only  a  seeming.  The  distance 
is  a  creation  of  your  own  thought.  The 
earthliness  of  your  humanity  makes  such 
a  racket,  that  you  cannot  hear  the  voice, 
nor  realize  the  nearness  and  reality  of 
your  divinity. 

It  took  the  impetuous,  fiery  Moses,  forty 
years  at  the  onerous  and  lonesome  task  of 
herding  sheep,  before  he  could  get  himself 
still  enough  to  hear  the  voice  of  the  "I 
am  that  I  am"  within  him.  While  egoism 


'The     Pronoun     of    Power"       33 

—the  "I  am'7  of  Moses — is  the  limit  of  his 
progress  in  consciousness,  he  is  still,  and 
only,  the  "Son  of  Pharoah's  daughter/' 
But  when,  after  long  years  in  the 
solitudes,  his  self-consciousness  became 
merged  into  the  consciousness  of  God,  and 
he  could  hear  the  voice  within  him  saying, 
"I  am  that  I  am,"  he  ceased  to  be  called 
the  Son  of  Pharoah's  daughter,  for  he  had 
become  the  mouthpiece,  the  incarnated 
presence  and  power  of  Jehovah's  personal- 
ity, ready  and  comissioned  to  deliver  Is- 
rael. From  that  hour,  in  every  time  of 
perplexity,  he  had  only  to  call  upon  this 
Infinite  life  within  himself,  to  realize  that 
Infinite  resources  were  at  hand  to  divide 
a  sea,  to  feed  a  multitude,  or  to  shake  a 
kingdom. 

The  only  safety  valve  for  this  exagger- 
ated self -consciousness  which  today  pos- 
sesses the  world  of  rational  men,  is 
to  merge  it  into  God-consciousness ;  to  let 
the  egoism — the  "I  am" —be  lost  in  the 
Infinite  Ego — the ' '  I  am  that  I  am. ' '  And 
why  should  you  wait  forty  years  for  the 
fiery  passions  of  life  to  die  out,  or  even 
for  forty  days,  to  realize  the  "I  am  that 
I  am"  within  you?  You  need  not  seek 


34  The     Voice     Eternal 

the  silence  of  the  desert,  nor  the  seclusion 
of  the  cloister.  Follow  the  directions  of 
the  Master  who  taught  us  the  secret  of 
oneness  with  the  Father.  "Enter  into  thy 
closet,  and  when  thoii  hast  shut  thy  door." 
You  will  not  hear  this  great  voice  of  the 
spirit  speak  at  first  save  in  the  solitude. 
You  must  find  time  daily  alone.  Into  this 
aloneness  you  may  not  take  your  dearest 
earthly  friend.  After  a  while  you  will 
learn  to  hear  the  voice  within  in  the  midst 
of  any  tumult ;  but  at  first  you  must  enter 
in  and  shut  the  door.  Wherever  you  are, 
as  you  read  this  line,  enter  now  this  great 
within,  close  up  the  eyes,  ears,  and  all  the 
doors  of  sense.  You  can  do  it.  Have  you 
not  had  your  attention  so  engrossed  on 
some  magnificent  scene,  or  some  work  of 
art,  that  you  did  not  hear  your  friend 
at  your  elbow  speak;  or  have  you  not 
been  listening  to  something  or  "thinking" 
and  passed  your  friend  on  the  street,  look- 
ing straight  at  him  with  no  sign  of  recog- 
nition, and  "come  to"  with  a  start  after 
you  had  passed?  So  abstract  your  mind 
away  from  the  things  of  time  and  sense, 
enter  into  this  dumb  house,  insulated,  and 
isolated,  and  be  still!  Contemplate  your 


"The     Pronoun     of    Power"       35 

divine  birthright,  to  realize  and  manifest 
the  fulness  of  the  Infinite  life.  Pass  up 
the  path  trod  by  prophets  and  seers  in 
every  age,  "take  off  thy  shoes  from  thy 
feet,"  let  your  approach  be  so  reverent 
and  trustful,  that  it  needs  give  no  warning 
of  approach.  Walk  up  and  stand  before 
God.  Bathe  your  spirit  in  His  Infinite 
life  and  peace  and  love  and  health.  See  in 
him  as  in  a  mirror  your  own  true  self. 
Settle  here  for  yourself  that  old  conflict 
that  nearly  rent  the  early  Christian  church 
—namely,  is  this  living  God,  before  whom 
you  stand,  the  same  substance  of  which 
you  are  made,  or  just  like  it,  but  not  the 
same?  In  Greek  there  is  but  an  '  'iota's" 
difference  in  expressing  it,  but  to  you  it 
means  the  difference  of  being  a  son  or  an 
alien.  Tarry  here  until  the  "I  am"  is  lost 
in  the  greater  "I  am  that  I  am."  Then 
with  your  oneness  assured,  return  to  your 
earthly  walk,  in  full  possession  of  all  the 
resources  for  health  and  wealth,  for  power 
and  service,  for  "thy  Father  which  seeth 
in  secret  shall  reward  thee  openly." 
Henceforth  the  works  that  you  do  are  not 
yours,  but  "thy  Father's."  These  vast 
resources  are  not  yours,  nor  for  your  sake, 


36  The     Voice     Eternal 

but  they  are  rather  given  for  the  perfect 
manifestation  of  the  Infinite  life  for  your 
own  and  for  others'  welfare.  This  is  the 
first  degree  of  the  Abundant  Life,  and  its 
password  is,  "I  am  that  I  am." 

It  was  said  of  Jesus  that  "he  spake  as 
one  having  authority."  He  didn't  argue, 
nor  try  to  prove  anything.  No  intellec- 
tual heat  is  apparent  in  the  tremendous 
truths  he  uttered.  He  didn't  seem  to  dis- 
cover any  new  truth  by  logical  process, 
but  he  did  speak  what  he  himself  was, 
and  having  announced  the  truth,  he  let 
men  do  what  they  would  with  it.  The  po- 
tency of  his  words  lay  in  the  fact  that  they 
were  not  his,  but  the  God's  who  sent  him. 
They  were  not  what  he  thought,  but  what 
he  was.  And  with  the  consciousness  of  his 
oneness  with  God,  there  came  the  sense  of 
authority  to  speak,  and  "it  was  done"; 
to  command,  and  "it  stood  fast."  Deaf 
ears  heard  at  his  touch,  blind  eyes  opened 
at  his  word,  the  lame  man  leaped  as  an 
hart,  and  the  tongue  of  the  dumb  spake. 
Even  the  elements  obeyed  his  command. 
With  that  consciousness  of  oneness  there 
was  never  a  moment's  hesitation.  "Take 
up  thy  bed  and  walk" — "I  will,  be  thou 


'The     Pronoun     of    Power"       37 

clean."  The  omnipotent  "I  can,"  had  its 
seat  of  authority  in  him,  because  God 
dwelt  in  him,  and  he  knew  and  asserted 
it  with  all  that  it  meant.  Just  when  this 
oneness  became  a  fact  is  not  so  important 
as  when  he  became  conscious  of  the  fact. 
And  that  is  the  supreme  moment  to  us  all. 
Sooner  or  later  the  time  comes  when  we 
accept  and  enter  into  our  divine  heritage, 
and  we  see  something  of  what  lies  before 
us.  There  is  the  break  with  bigotry  and 
narrowness ;  the  going  forth  to  a  world  of 
divine  men,  most  of  whom  do  not  know  it, 
and  will  not  receive  it,  and  like  swine,  on 
whose  level  they  live,  will  turn  and  rend 
you  when  you  have  cast  this  pearl  of  truth 
before  them.  Facing  such  a  career,  more 
than  one  man  has  said,  "Mine  hour  is  not 
yet  come."  Yet  the  hour  arrives  when 
perplexed  men  appeal  to  you,  when  the 
hungry  must  be  fed,  the  thirsty  given 
drink,  the  needy  helped,  the  diseased  and 
pain-ridden  and  obsessed  must  be  set  free, 
and  you  will  face  the  great  question — 
"Can  I  manifest  the  divine  *I  am'  in  this 
case?"  Your  hour  is  come,  and  the  "I 
am  that  I  am"  of  Infinite  potentiality  be- 
comes the  "I  can"  of  achievement.  At 


38  The    Voice     Eternal 

your  touch  pain  will  depart,  at  your  word 
of  comfort  sorrow  will  flee  away;  your 
hand  shall  wipe  away  the  tears,  and  at 
your  word  of  command  the  devils  of  psy- 
chic obsession  will  make  haste  to  depart ; 
and  you  will  so  manifest  the  power  of  God 
that  you  will  realize  that  you  have  passed 
into  the  second  degree  of  the  Life  More 
Abundant,  whose  password  is  "/  can/' 

Pause  here  for  a  moment.  Enter  the 
chamber  of  reflection.  Ponder  the  mean- 
ing of  the  resources  that  are  yours.  Im- 
agination cannot  sound  the  height  and 
depth  of  the  "I  am  that  I  am"  and  "I 
can"  to  which  you  have  attained.  And 
here  a  voice  will  speak  to  you  and  say: 
"If  this  be  true,  if  you  be  the  Son  of 
God,  if  you  have  a  divine  gift,  if  the  ful- 
ness of  divine  life  dwells  in  you,  you  can 
command  that  these  stones  be  made  bread. 
Sell  out  this  gift  for  bread.  Business  is 
business,  and  you  can  make  money  out 
of  this  power. ' '  Will  you  sell  out,  or  will 
you  answer :  "I  cannot  live  by  bread  alone. 
There  are  other  things  as  important  and 
these  I  should  lose  if  I  sold  out  for  bread." 
Before  you  answer,  recall  that  "all  things 
are  yours,  and  you  are  Christ's  and  Christ 


"The     Pronoun     of    Power"       39 

is  God's."  Then  why  should  you  barter 
this  divine  gift  for  something  that  is  po- 
tentially yours  already,  but  the  complete 
and  full  possession  of  which  might  prove 
a  handicap  to  higher  service. 

Again  will  a  voice  say  to  you:  "If  di- 
vine power  is  in  you,  if  you  have  a  gift  of 
God,  make  a  display  of  it.  Set  the  multi- 
tudes agape  with  the  wonders  you  can 
show  them,  make  a  show  of  yourself — it 
doesn't  matter  what  you  do,  you  cannot 
fail."  Be  careful  here.  Remember  that 
one  who  "did  not  many  mighty  works"  in 
a  certain  place,  "because  of  their  unbe- 
lief. ' '  All  results  are  conditioned  on  some- 
thing. Even  God  might  fail  if  he  violated 
the  conditions  of  the  operation  of  his  own 
laws.  Spectacular  as  were  some  of  the 
works  of  Jesus,  the  demand  for  him  to  do 
them  for  "show"  was  ever  met  with  the 
answer:  "There  shall  no  sign  be  given." 

And  the  tempter  will  say  once  more: 
"Granted  that  you  are  a  Son  of  God,  that 
you  and  God  are  one,  that  the  Infinite  'I 
am'  dwells  in  you — is  you — call  it  by  some 
other  name,  fall  down  and  worship  the 
traditions  of  the  past,  the  accepted  order 
of  things.  Why  should  you  choose  the 


40  The     Voice     Eternal 

cross  of  persecution  that  the  pharisees  of 
sectarianism  will  lay  upon  you?  Why 
court  the  derision  of  the  doctors  of  medi- 
cine, by  presuming  to  live  in  health,  or 
even  to  die  without  their  assistance? 
Choose  an  easier  way. ' '  Here  then  is  your 
final  test.  Will  you  claim  your  birthright 
and  call  it  by  its  right  name,  and  in  that 
name  go  forth  to  manifest  its  power  ?  Look 
at  your  motive.  Do  you  desire  perfect 
health,  that  you  may  fully  manifest  the 
Infinite  health,  and  that  you  may  serve  in 
full  vigor,  ministering  health  to  others? 
Do  you  desire  the  Peace  of  God,  so  that 
dwelling  in  perfect  peace  you  may  speak 
the  word  of  peace  to  the  troubled  ones  of 
earth?  Do  you  desire  wealth  that  you 
may  have  leisure  to  serve  and  means  to 
lighten  the  load  of  the  heavy-laden?  Do 
these  motives  seem  to  you  worthy  of  one 
who  can  say,  "I  am  that  I  am?"  If  so, 
then  speak  that  word  that  spoke  worlds 
into  existence,  bringing  order  out  of 
chaos,  and  man  out  of  dust — the  word 
upon  which  pivots  your  whole  future  des- 
tiny— "I  will" — and  enter  the  third  de- 
gree of  the  most  Abundant  Life,  of  which 
"I  will"  is  the  password. 


"The     Pronoun     of     Power"       41 

Let  these  words,  "I  am,"  "I  can,"  "I 
will,"  be  the  one  triune  potentiality  be- 
fore which  you  bow  and  say:  "Whose  I 
am,  and  whom  I  serve."  For  these  are 
the  words  that  marshal  all  the  God-like 
powers,  and  cause  them  to  move  out  with 
resistless  force  to  assault  the  gates  of 
pain,  poverty,  fear,  disease,  and  death,  and 
to  end  them  with  the  challenge :  "Oh  pain, 
sin,  death,  where  is  thy  sting  or  thy  vic- 
tory 1" 

Avoid  two  mistakes,  one  of  which  is  to 
wait  until  you  realize  the  fulness  of  the 
divine  power  before  claiming  it  and  be- 
ginning to  manifest  it.  Rather  respond  to 
the  first  call  that  will  surely  head  your 
way.  Speak  to  it  in  the  name  of  the  "I 
am  that  I  am,"  and  you  will  marvel  at 
the  result;  and  each  successive  use  will 
enlarge  your  manifesting  power.  The  oth- 
er is,  beware  of  thinking  that  you  can 
keep  unused  this  Infinite  life.  Remem- 
ber that  the  Dead  Sea  is  dead  because  it 
gathers  but  never  gives,  except  by  evapo- 
ration. You  are  not  an  evaporator,  you 
are  a  channel.  As  you  freely  pour  out 
of  this  life,  the  flood  tides  of  Infinite  Life 
will  pour  in,  "pressed  down,  shaken  to- 


42  The     Voice     Eternal 

gether,  running  over."  In  a  city  of  the 
northwest,  there  may  be  seen  at  the  dis- 
tance of  forty  miles  a  snow-crowned  peak 
lifting  its  head  far  above  all  about  it,  and 
at  its  foot  a  beautiful  lake  of  ice-cold 
water,  clear  as  crystal.  On  a  street  of  this 
city,  you  will  find  an  immense  watering- 
trough,  where  a  constant  procession  of 
thirsty  teams  are  stopping  to  drink  deeply 
of  its  crystal  liquid,  yet  never  for  a  mo- 
ment is  the  supply  depleted.  When  the 
trough  is  just  so  full,  the  supply  automat- 
ically shuts  off;  and  when  it  drops  below 
its  normal  level,  it  automatically  opens 
and  that  exhaustless  reservoir  far  away 
pours  in  its  fresh,  sweet  supply.  And  this 
is  the  parable  of  the  Abundant  Life, 
whose  flood  gates  are  opened  by  the  pro- 
noun of  power,  I,  so  that  the  speech  is 
resonant  with  power,  the  eye  glows  with 
light,  the  finger-tips  tingle  with  healing 
energy,  the  whole  body  vibrates  with  a  re- 
sistless power  for  health;  and  the  very 
shadow,  like  that  of  Peter  of  old,  blesses 
those  upon  whom  it  unconsciously  falls. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  MAN  ON  CRUTCHES. 

AT  FIRST  blush  man  is  a  materialist. 
He  sees  things  as  material  objects ;  he 
thinks  in  material  forms,  he  speaks  in 
material  terms,  and  most  of  his  life  is  lived 
out  in  a  very  material  way.  These  ma- 
terial things  are  the  crutches  upon  which 
his  living  spirit  limps  until  it  finds  itself 
and  learns  to  walk  alone.  The  conscious- 
ness of  material  things  is  evident  in  all 
his  thoughts  and  actions.  He  may  assume 
some  lofty  philosophy  and  deny  the  real- 
ity of  material  things,  but  he  still  has  a 
very  material  sort  of  hunger  that  must 
feed  on  material  food,  he  writes  material 
books  on  which  he  secures  material  copy- 
right and  for  which  he  insists  on  receiving 
some  very  material  dollars.  And  when  hg 
comes  into  contact  with  the  business  end 
of  a  bee,  he  gives  material  evidence  of 
feeling  material  pain.  So  does  our  mate- 
rialism ever  play  havoc  with  our  philoso- 
phy. It  is  a  part  of  man's  inheritance 
from  the  various  stages  of  his  evolution. 
It  is  needless  to  debate  wiiether  his  ma- 
terial form  came  from  a  monkey  or  a  clod, 


44  The    Voice     Eternal 

the  real  question  is  how  far  has  he  gotten 
away  from  the  monkey  or  the  clod,  on 
his  journey  up  toward  the  angels  and  to- 
ward God.  His  materialism  clings,  and 
he  can  no  more  shake  it  off  in  a  moment, 
than  he  can  shake  his  shadow  when  the 
sun  shines  upon  him. 

Not  one  in  a  thousand  can  think  of  God 
as  the  universal  spiritual  substance,  with- 
out body  or  parts.  We  think  of  him  as  a 
man.  The  white  man  thinks  of  him  as  a 
big  white  man,  the  Chinaman  as  a  big 
chinaman,  the  Indian  as  a  big  indian  and 
the  African  as  a  big  black  man.  Nor  does 
it  change  the  force  of  this  observation 
that  there  is  a  seeming  exception  in  the 
case  of  the  American  Negro,  who  through 
centuries  of  environment  abandoned  his 
own  material  notions  and  adopted  that 
of  his  superiors,  that  God  is  a  big  white 
man,  and  finds  delight  in  singing  such 
songs  as  that  one  whose  chorus  runs, 
"Whiter  than  snow,  Now  wash  me  and  I 
shall  be  whiter  than  snow."  We  project 
the  material  terms  and  forms  of  our  ideas, 
and  clothe  God  with  them,  thus  creating 
God  in  our  own  image,  and  reversing  the 
original  order  of  our  being  made  in  his 
image. 


The     Man     on    Crutches  45 

Now  this  big  man  of  our  mental  con- 
ception we  have  clothed  with  such  Infinite 
power,  that  we  are  awed  at  the  thought 
of  comparing  ourselves  with  him.  The  an- 
cient psalmist,  answering  his  own  ques- 
tion, "What  is  man'?"  exclaimed,  "Thou 
hast  made  him  a  little  less  than  God," 
but  the  translators  were  afraid  to  give  man 
his  true  dignity,  so  they  made  it  read,  "a 
little  lower  than  the  angels. "  And  that 
action  of  the  translators  is  in  keeping  with 
most  of  the  acts  in  man's  earthly  career, 
for  he  was  made  with  all  created  things 
under  his  feet,  but  he  promptly  reversed 
the  order  and  put  them  all  over  .his  head, 
and  he  has  been  trying  to  climb  out  from 
under  them  ever  since. 

In  the  record  of  those  glimpses  that 
men  have  been  given  of  the  Infinite  Life, 
God  is  spoken  of  as  man,  speaks  as  a  man, 
feels  as  a  man,  and  so  strong  is  this  ma- 
terialistic notion  of  God  that  men  of  all 
ages  have  wanted  to  see  God,  and  in  lieu 
of  that  vision  have  worshipped  the  sun, 
moon,  stars,  the  bull,  the  ram,  natural 
forces,  man's  reproductive  powers,  in  fact 
every  form  in  which  the  divine  creative 
energy  has  been  manifest.  These  were 


46  The    Voice     Eternal 

substitutes  for  the  reality.  In  the  wilder- 
ness journey  when  Israel  had  lost  sight  of 
Moses  in  the  mount,  they  said  to  Aaron, 
"Up  and  make  us  Gods  that  shall  go  be- 
fore us,  for,  as  for  this  Moses  we  know 
not  what  is  become  of  him. ' '  They  wanted 
Gods  that  they  could  see.  A  brazen  calf 
in  sight  was  better  than  a  wonder-working 
man  out  of  sight.  This  is  ever  the  human 
heart's  cry — to  see  God.  The  Infinite,  try- 
ing to  find  itself  in  material  expression, 
and  which  has  created  the  demand  sets 
about  to  answer  it,  for  He  has  appeared 
in  dreams  and  visions,  by  Urim  and 
Thummin,  by  prophets  and  seers,  by  sub- 
jective voice  and  by  objective  providence, 
coming  always  a  little  nearer  the  answer, 
until  he  came  in  that  one  perfect  manifes- 
tation of  the  divine  life,  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth, who  said  truly,  "He  that  hath  seen 
me  hath  seen  the  Father  also."  And  even 
his  most  spiritual  disciples  exulted  in  the 
fact  that  they  had  seen  and  looked  upon, 
touched  and  handled  the  word  of  life. 
Here  ends  then  the  long  quest  of  man,  the 
materialist.  His  crutches  may  be  laid 
aside.  God  is  no  longer  in  some  far  off 
heaven,  but  in  earth;  no  longer  round 


The     Man     on    Crutches  47 

about  us,  but  in  us,  of  us — us.  And  just 
as  truly  as  in  the  miracle  of  the  loaves  and 
fishes,  none  could  tell  where  the  natural 
bread  and  fish  ended  and  the  supernatural 
bread  and  fish  began  for  the  simple  reason 
that  there  was  no  difference,  they  being 
of  one  substance,  so  no  man  can  tell  just 
where  the  purely  human  life  in  man  ends 
and  the  Infinite  Life  begins,  for  the  rea- 
son that  there  is  no  difference,  they  are 
one.  And  this  identification  is  indicated 
in  the  saying  of  Jesus  that  when  we  minis- 
ter unto  the  least  of  these  we  minister  unto 
him,  and  in  that  question  to  Saul  of  Tar- 
sus "why  persecutest  thou  me,"  when  he 
was  actually  persecuting  some  of  the  hum- 
ble followers  of  the  Christ.  Yet  after  all 
these  object  lessons  we  are  only  slowly  ac- 
cepting the  fact  that  God  does  indeed  dwell 
in  flesh  upon  the  earth,  and  when  it  comes 
to  some  of  the  inevitable  results  of  that 
truth,  our  materialism  still  asserts  itself. 
We  are  still  on  crutches.  For  like  Moses 
who  was  slow  of  speech  and  had  to  call  in 
Aaron  to  be  a  mouthpiece,  a  crutch  to 
lean  upon,  we  have  developed  a  whole  sys- 
tem of  crutches  through  whose  mediation 
the  divine  life  is  ministered,  for  be  it  kept 


48  The     Voice     Eternal 

in  mind  that  the  Infinite  Life  accommo- 
dates itself  to  our  stage  of  development, 
as  he  did  with  Moses  and  his  people  of 
that  day.  They  said,  "  speak  thou  to  God 
for  us,  and  let  him  speak  to  thee,  and  thou 
to  us,  but  let  not  God  speak  to  us  lest  we 
die."  Five-sixths  of  the  race  must  still 
have  a  minister  of  religion,  a  priest,  to 
speak  to  God  in  their  behalf,  and  speak 
to  them  in  God's  behalf.  So  mote  it  be. 
Let  not  the  other  sixth  feel  called  upon  to 
knock  away  the  crutch  of  the  masses  and 
drop  them  into  the  mire,  simply  because 
the  one-sixth  can  walk  alone — can  walk 
and  talk  with  God. 

Our  stammering  tongues  cannot  express 
what  we  think  and  feel  in  our  worship 
and  praise,  so  we  call  in  to  our  aid  the  rich 
and  beautiful  liturgies  of  the  devout  of 
kll  the  ages,  to  help  us  to  present,  in  fitting 
form,  our  feelings  and  thoughts  toward 
this  formless  spirit  which  takes  form  in 
man. 

Or,  we  feel  the  need  of  some  symbol  of 
the  Infinite  Life  incarnate  in  flesh,  an 
object  lesson  to  teach  us  not  only  the  fact 
of  the  Divine  presence  in  human  life  in 
all  its  manifestations,  but  also  the  method 


The     Man     on    Crutches  49 

by  which  the  Infinite  life  is  imparted  to 
us.  And  we  turn  to  that  supreme  Chris- 
tian symbol,  the  Holy  Eucharist  in  which 
the  Infinite  is  represented  as  forever 
being  offered  for  us,  and  we  have  in  a  ma- 
terial form  an  interpretation  of  the  con- 
stant impartation  of  the  Infinite  life.  And 
if  we  shall  be  led  into  thinking  that  we 
receive  the  Divine  life  only  in  the  moment 
we  receive  the  material  elements  our  mis- 
take will  be  as  great  as  when  we  are  lead 
into  thinking  that  the  elements  have  been 
actually  transformed  into  the  physical 
reality  of  the  Saviour's  body.  In  the  one 
case  we  have  robbed  ourselves  of  the  su- 
preme joy  of  living  out  our  lives  every 
moment  in  the  life  of  God,  and  in  the  other 
we  have  chosen  to  mistake  the  crutch  for 
the  living  thing  it  symbolizes. 

Or  as  we  have  seen  some  wild  bird  in  the 
depths  of  the  forest  find  a  pool  in  which  it 
fluttered  and  cleansed  the  soot  from  its 
wings,  so  we  have  seen  the  need  of  some 
material  aid  to  assist  us  in  cleansing  the 
soul  of  its  earthliness,  the  residuum  of  past 
actions  and  passions  that  have  had  their 
place  in  our  lives,  and  we  turn  again  to 
that  other  Christian  symbol  of  baptism, 


50  The     Voice     Eternal 

and  we  have  an  illustration  of  how  the  soul 
is  purified  by  the  incoming  tides  of  the 
divine  life,  and  restored  to  its  pristine 
beauty. 

Or  like  St.  Paul  we  may  have  seen  the 
third  heaven  of  emotional  rapture  and; 
heard  things  unlawful  to  utter,  and,  been 
filled  with  such  healing  power,  as  that 
handkerchiefs  and  aprons  touching  our 
bodies,  are  carried  to  the  sick  and  they 
recover,  yet  be  compelled  to  confess  to  a 
" thorn  in  the  flesh"  which  no  amount  of 
prayer  has  removed,  and  to  rejoice  in 
Luke,  "the  beloved  physician"  as  a 
travelling  companion. 

Many  of  our  ills  disappear  at  the  word 
of  authority  of  the  life  within  us,  but 
some  may  not.  Then  we  turn  to  the  phy- 
sician for  a  crutch  to  lean  upon.  And  why 
should  we  blush  or  apologize  for  it.  Is 
not  the  Infinite  life  constantly  ministered 
to  us  in  food,  and  drink,  and  air?  Do  I 
dishonor  the  Infinite  life  within  me,  by 
eating  bread  when  I  am  hungry,  drinking 
water  when  I  am  thirsty,  or  breathing 
deeply  to  oxygenate  the  blood,  and  by 
these  and  other  means  renew  my  flagging 
energies?  And  if  not,  do  I  deny  the 


The     Man     on     Crutches  51 

Infinite  life  when  I  take  quinine  to  eradi- 
cate the  vandal  germ  of  malaria  from  my 
blood  instead  of  giving  him  large  doses  of 
mental  suggestion.  Or  when  a  savage 
hook  worm  gets  a  strangle  hold  on  the 
neck  of  my  stomach,  do  I  dishonor  my  in- 
dwelling life  of  power,  if  instead  of  argu- 
ing with  him  about  his  being  an  "error  of 
thought"  I  pass  him  a  little  thymol  that 
will  speedily  make  a  "good  Indian"  of 
him.  Is  the  energy  in  a  bean  or  a  grain 
of  wheat,  any  more  divine  than  the  energy 
in  the  bark  of  the  cinchona  tree?  Come 
now  brethren,  let  us  reason  together. 

When  we  over-eat  and  miss-eat,  and 
most  of  us  do  this,  do  we  quit  eating  per- 
manently, or  do  we  reform  our  diet  and 
habits'?  Then  when  we  have  over-doc- 
tored and  mis-doctored  shall  we  abstain 
or  reform.  We  may  conceive  of  a  time 
when  men  will  learn  to  live  without  eat- 
ing, but  the  time  is  not  yet.  And  wre  may 
conceive  a  time  when  men  shall  live  the 
perfect  life  of  God  on  earth,  and  will  not 
need  medicine.  Some  have  already  learned 
it.  But  it  is  a  long  process  to  bring  a 
world  of  individuals,  such  as  those  in  our 
world,  to  such  a  state  of  perfectly  mani- 


52  The    Voice    Eternal 

festing  the  divine  life  that  "none  of  the 
inhabitants  shall  say  I  am  sick."  Until 
that  time  happily  for  us  there  is  planted 
in  the  city  of  each  man's  soul  "a  tree  of 
life,  whose  leaves  are  for  the  healing  of 
the  nations,"  and  corresponding  to  it  in 
this  material  world  is  a  inateria  medica 
with  proven  potencies. 

One  may  gaze  in  rapt  contemplation  on 
his  spiritual  tree  of  Infinite  life  and 
energy,  and  by  a  sort  of  auto-suggestion 
appropriate  its  healing  potency,  and  live 
in  health.  Another  may  be  still  on  crutches 
and  compelled  to  turn  to  the  material  tree 
or  herb,  and  take  some  of  its  leaves  and 
make  a  powder  to  swallow,  and  by  its 
energy  find  the  way  to  health.  Brother 
idealist,  do  not  throw  stones  at  him  for  it. 
Presumably  he  is  doing  the  best  he  knows ; 
at  least  it  is  what  most  people  do  and  will 
continue  to  do  for  a  long  time  to  come. 
The  race  can't  get  off  its  crutches  in  a  day. 
Jesus  did  not  heal  all  the  sick  people  in 
the  world  when  he  was  here.  But  the  com- 
pany is  increasing  of  those  who  have 
progressed  in  the  divine  life  far  enough 
to  manifest  it  in  perfect  health  without  the 


The     Man    on    Crutches  53 

use  of  material  form,  and  they  are  the 
prophecy  of  a  future  time, 

"When  the  lame  leap  for  joy  and  the  blind  re- 
ceive their  sight; 

When  ears  long  closed  to  sound,  will  be  ravished 
with  delight, 

And  tongues  that  never  uttered  a  sentence  here 
below, 

Burst  into  song  through  ages  long,  thither  let  us 
go." 

A  MAN  CAN  BE  ANYTHING  HE 
WANTS  TO  BE ;  ANYTHING  HE  BE- 
LIEVES HE  CAN  BE;  ANYTHING 
HE  WILLS  TO  BE. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  PATH  OF  LEAST  RESISTANCE 

THE  traveler  making  the  ascent  of  Mt. 
Hood  lias  the  choice  of  two  routes — 
the  shorter  and  more  precipitous  one 
from  the  north,  or  the  longer  and 
more  gradual  one  from  the  south. 
In  one  case  the  movement  is  in  an 
opposite  direction  from  what  it  would 
be  in  the  other,  but  they  both  reach 
the  same  goal.  And  he  who  would  find 
the  summit  of  self-mastery  where  abide 
peace,  health,  power,  plenty,  and  the 
reality  of  the  glorious  vision  of  a  perfect 
or  whole  life,  will  find  two  seemingly  oppo- 
site movements  operating,  yet  each  leading 
to  the  coveted  goal. 

There  is  the  positive  aggressive  asser- 
tion of  the  Ego,  which  sa.ys,  "I  am,  I  can, 
and  /  will,  be  the  master  of  all  things  in 
my  life."  Following  this  motion  the  indi- 
vidual moves  steadily  forward  to  condition 
all  the  circumstances  of  his  life.  He  says 
to  Poverty,  "Thou  hast  no  place  in  my 
life.  All  the  potencies  of  Infinite  plenty 
dwell  here.  I  am  not  running  in  feverish 
haste  after  a  fleeing  prosperity.  I  am 


Path     of    Least    Resistance       55 

swinging  wide  the  door  of  my  life,  and 
opening  every  avenue  of  action  for 
plenty  to  come  in.  Infinite  plenty  is 
seeking  me,  wrants  to  make  me  its 
instrument  of  expression,  and  its  agent  for 
others.  I  am  content  to  be  its  incarnation 
in  any  degree.  I  do  not  fear  poverty,  nor 
do  I  fear  that  plenty  will  flee  from  me.  It 
will  come. to  me  just  as  fast  as  I  can  give 
it  adequate  and  divine  expression.  I  have 
conquered  poverty  for  /  am  plenty  and 
prosperity.  I  hold  before  me  the  vision 
of  myself  as  surrounded  with  all  the  set- 
tings of  plenty  and  comfort  and  useful- 


ness.' 


He  says  to  Fear  and  Worry,  "Thou  hast 
no  place  in  my  life.  There  is  no  room  here 
for  your  brood,  for  the  Infinite  life  whose 
perfect  expression  is  love,  fills  me  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  else.  I  am  made  perfect 
and  complete  in  this  love  that  casts  out 
fear  and  leaves  no  room  for  it.  Why  should 
I  fear  a  shadow  that  is  cast  by  no  sub- 
stance in  me,  that  has  no  reality  in  the 
presence  of  Infinite  love  ?  Why  should  I 
dishonor  this  Infinite  love  by  fearing  that 
it  cannot  keep  me  in  all  my  ways  ?  Why 
should  I  worry  over  something  that  seems 


56  The     Voice    Eternal 

to  threaten  evil  to  me  when  I  have  the 
assurance  of  this  Infinite  love  that  'no 
evil  shall  befall  me'9  And  even  when  evil 
days  come  and  life  is  sorely  beset,  this 
Infinite  love  assures  me  that  'All  things 
work  together  for  good7  for  me.  This  afflic- 
tion shall  work  out  for  me  a  greater  weight 
of  joy.  I  shall  find  it  but  the  advance 
agent  of  some  greater  blessing  for  which  it 
is  preparing  the  way,  and  that  could  not 
have  come  but  for  this  steam  roller  which 
pulverizes  the  clods  and  prepares  the  way 
of  the  Lord.  So  I  will  not  fear  evil,  nor 
worry  over  its  possible  coming,  and  if  it 
comes,  I  shall  say,  'Thank  you.  What 
message,  what  good  are  you  leading  my 
way?<?  And  thus  I  shall  overcome  evil 
with  good." 

He  says  to  Pain  and  Disease,  "Thine 
hour  is  come.  Thou  shalt  no  longer  have 
dominion  over  me ;  no  longer  usurp  a  place 
in  this  divine  life  of  mine ;  no  longer  obsess 
me  with  sensory  images  of  pain  and  weak- 
ness and  despondency.  Thou  shalt  go  out 
into  the  deep  with  thy  fathers  of  old,  and 
give  room  to  the  mighty  tides  of  Infinite 
health  now  surging  within  me.  Henceforth 
I  shall  know  thee  no  more  save  as  the 


Path     of    Least    Resistance       57 

shadow  of  a  passing  wrong  condition. 
Thou  hast  no  substance,  no  meaning,  save 
to  announce  the  passing  of  my  life  up 
into  larger  expression  and  ease  and  use- 
fulness. Thou  art  at  best  but  a  'growing 
pain7  which  I  shall  cast  off  as  a  troubled 
dream  of  the  night.  For  I  am  health, 
ease,  and  power.  My  vision  of  myself  is 
not  of  pain  and  disease,  but  virile 
strength  and  health.  I  behold  myself 
dwelling  in  the  life  of  God,  filled  and 
clothed  upon  with  the  expression  of  per- 
fect health/' 

And  thus  in  this  direct,  positive  way, 
he  challenges  the  right  of  every  obstacle 
that  would  hinder  perfect  expression  of 
the  divine  life,  and  by  the  irresistible  im- 
pact of  this  sheer  force  of  will,  sweeps 
them  out  of  the  way.  This  may  seem  to 
picture  life  as  a  very  strenuous  affair. 
And  life  that  is  worth  anything  is  strenu- 
ous. The  Master  in  calling  men  to  follow 
him,  did  not  hide  from  them  the  difficul- 
ties they  must  meet.  And  his  greatest 
Apostle  chose  the  figures  of  the  foot-race 
and  the  battle — the  two  most  strenuous 
exercises  of  that  age — to  set  forth  the 
real  nature  of  living.  The  principle  of 


53  The     Voice     Eternal 

the  "survival  of  the  fittest"  is  still  in 
operation.  And  there  are  many  who  by 
temperament  and  character  are  so 
equipped  as  to  need  only  to  go  forth  in 
this  militant,  direct  way  to  resist  the  devil 
in  all  the  forms  in  which  evil  meets  them, 
and  find  that  he  flees  from  them,  and  his 
obsessions  disappear. 

Even  these  strong  natures  find  occa- 
sional Alps  too  high  for  them  to  scale,  and 
while  they  can  dispose  of  nineteen  visita- 
tions of  adversity,  fear,  or  disease,  the 
twentieth  one  will  stick  and  refuse  to 
budge.  It  will  neither  go  nor  be  forgot- 
ten. Two  things  are  possible  to  be  done. 
One  is  the  augmenting  of  our  own  inade- 
quate forces — inadequate  by  lack  of  faith 
— by  annexing  those  of  a  friend,  and  so 
fulfill  the  conditions  of  a  marvelousi 
increase  of  power,  viz.,  "If  two  of  you 
shall  agree  as  touching  anything,  it  shall 
be  done"  —not  may  be,  or  can  be,  but  shall 
be  done.  Here  two  wills  agree  and  be- 
cause of  that  agreement,  there  is  given 
unlimited  power. 

Suppose  that  this  other  person,  healer, 
or  friend,  be  not  available,  there  remains 
then  the  other  general  law  of  procedure— 


Path     of    Least     Resistance       59 

that  of  indirection.  And  many  will  find 
this  at  first  to  be  the  most  and  only  suc- 
cessful way  they  can  proceed.  Disease, 
pain,  fear,  or  worry,  or  some  other  idea 
which  may  or  may  not  be  materialized,  gets 
hold  of  the  mind  and  so  obsesses  it  that 
the  mind  cannot  shake  it  off.  Each  effort 
only  finds  it,  like  the  old  man  of  the  sea 
on  Sinbad  the  Sailor's  neck,  seated  the 
more  firmly  in  its  place.  Turn  now  to  the 
method  of  indirection.  Choose  some  other 
idea  and  place  it  beside  the  obsessing  one. 
It  may  be  difficult  at  first  to  hold  the  mind 
on  this  new  and  rival  thought,  but  by  a 
little  persistence  it  will  become  stronger 
as  the  attention  to  it  waxes,  and  this  other 
will  become  dim  as  the  attention  to  it 
wanes,  until  often  in  an  incredibly  short 
time  the  new  thought  has  entirely  dis- 
placed the  undesirable  one.  The  process 
resolves  itself  into  the  will  power  to  direct 
the  attention  to  any  idea  for  the  eventual 
exclusion  of  the  other  ideas  that  assume 
undue  prominence  in  the  mind. 

It  is  often  done  half  unconsciously,  as 
when  one,  tired  or  weak  from  recent  sick- 
ness, repairs  to  the  seaside  and  sits  and 
gazes  upon  the  ocean's  heaving  expanse, 


60  The     Voice     Eternal 

tossing  its  fathomless  depths  up  toward 
the  sky,  and  he  trembles  to  think  of  get- 
ting within  the  range  of  its  power.  And 
while  he  meditates,  the  ocean  becomes 
vocal  through  his  unconscious  self,  and 
begins  to  sing  its  song  of  power — "In  me 
are  gathered  the  immensity  of  mighty 
forces.  The  wildest  storms  of  earth  have 
fallen  to  sleep  on  my  bosom.  The  raging 
torrents  of  earth's  rivers  have  gathered 
into  my  depths.  The  roar  of  the  tempest, 
the  flash  of  lightning,  the  roll  of  thunder, 
have  been  but  the  time  beat  of  an  earthly 
song  that  I  have  heard  from  creation's 
hour.  Yet  if  thou  will  know  my  law,  and 
boldly  commit  thyself  to  my  bosom,  I 
become  a  highway  of  pleasure  to  bring 
together  the  ends  of  the  earth  and  carry 
blessings  to  the  farthest  habitation  of 
man."  And  as  the  days  pass,  the  uncon- 
scious absorption  of  strength  and  power 
from  this  embodiment  of  power  goes  on 
until  one  day  the  patient  rejoices  in  the 
return  to  health  and  strength. 

Or,  such  an  one  goes  to  the  mountains 
and  forests  and  sees  countless  tons  of  vege- 
tation pushing  upward  in  the  face  of  the 
laws  of  gravity,  yet  not  a  sigh  or  groan. 


Path     of    Least    Resistance       61 

And  soon  he  feels  the  living  force  of  that 
unseen  power  of  which  these  are  the 
images,  raising  him  up  in  spite  of  the 
drag  of  weakness  and  pain. 

Or,  he  beholds  some  wild  flower  bloom- 
ing in  some  secluded  spot  where  no  eye 
shall  see  it,  yet  it  gaily  tosses  its  head  to 
the  breeze,  nor  worries  as  to  whether  it 
shall  rain  or  shine,  whether  frost  shall 
come  in  untimely  hour  and  spoil  its  beauty, 
or  whether  any  eye  shall  see  its  beauty,  or 
any  nostrils  delight  in  its  fragrance.  And 
as  you  consider  this  flower  of  the  forest, 
how  it  grows  without  worry  or  care,  but 
simply  keeping  still  in  the  conditions  of 
its  life,  and  finding  itself  clothed  with 
glory  that  Solomon  could  not  even  have 
dreamed  of,  the  sense  of  resignation 
and  rest  in  the  place  where  we  are,  takes 
hold  of  us,  and  joy  and  gladness  is  ours; 
and  we  have  by  keeping  still  in  the  pres- 
ence of  infinite  strength,  found  our 
strength  renewed. 

There  remains  the  secret  path  of  non- 
resistance.  It  is  sometimes  better  to.  bend 
than  to  break,  better  to  walk  round  the 
mountain  than  to  scale  its  heights.  A 
stream  starting  down  the  mountain  side 


62  The    Voice     Eternal 

and  finding  a  rock  in  the  way,  doesn't  try 
to  batter  its  way  through  the  rock,  but 
finds  the  way  of  least  resistance,  and  so 
makes  a  channel  along  which  it  can  move, 
and  gradually  wear  away  that  very  rock. 
And  many  a  life  is  trying  to  batter  down 
temperamental  barriers,  or  hammer  its 
wa}^  through  the  rock  of  some  hereditary 
limitations  instead  of  finding  the  way  of 
least  resistance.  Here's  a  man  trying  to 
sell  goods  when  all  the  time  there  is  no 
inner  content.  He  ought  to  be  hammering 
iron,  or  plowing  in  the  field,  or  teaching- 
men,  or  practicing  law,  or  healing  the 
sick,  or  singing  some  sweet  song  of 
comfort,  or  preaching  some  gospel  of 
peace.  There  is  always  the  intuitive  sense 
that  he  is  doing  the  wrong  thing,  an  inner 
longing  to  do  something  else.  And  this 
unsatisfaction  is  the  voice  of  his  divine 
life  prophesying  to  him  what  he  may  be  or 
ought  to  be,  but  he  is  started  in  the  wrong 
vocation  and  he's  afraid  to  experiment  by 
changing,  so  he  batters  away  at  the  intan- 
gible yet  ever-present  obstacle  of  discon- 
tent and  drags  out  life  in  dissatisfaction. 
Or  on  the  other  hand,  one  day  he  chooses 
the  way  of  least  resistance,  no  matter  if 


Path    of    Least    Resistance       63 

it  seems  a  step  upward  or  downward,  and 
lo !  there  is  peace,  and  the  sense  that  he  is 
moving  in  the  way  that  furnishes  the  In- 
finite life  the  largest,  openest  channel  to 
most  perfectly  express  itself. 

These  misadjustments  of  life  furnish 
most  of  its  tragedies.  Many  a  man  is  a 
butcher  or  baker  simply  because  his  father 
was  one,  or  it  was  the  way  chosen  for 
him  by  his  friends,  and  for  every  other 
reason  than  that  of  adaptability.  The  city 
Miss  goes  to  the  town  or  village  to  teach 
school,  where  she  dilates  on  the  pleasures 
of  city  life,  enlarges  upon  its  opportuni- 
ties, until  the  country  is  depopulated  by 
the  rush  of  youth  to  the  city  when  they 
are  needed  in  the  country,  and  most  of 
them  are  best  fitted  for  its  life  and  activi- 
ties. 

Neither  the  opinions  of  our  friends,  the 
desire  of  our  parents,  nor  our  own  judg- 
ment is  the  infallible  guide  in  choosing 
our  life's  work ;  but  that  inner  voice  which 
clamors  for  action  in  its  own  chosen  way, 
holds  before  us  what  we  ought  to  be,  plays 
an  anvil  chorus  on  the  front  door  of  the 
soul,  lays  for  us  around  the  corner  with  a 
stuffed  club,  making  such  a  din  that  we 


64  The     Voice     Eternal 

cannot  do  our  task  in  comfort.  This  voice 
is  the  prophet  of  the  soul,  voicing  the  will 
of  the  Infinite  life  which  would  find  fullest 
expression  in  us,  leading  us  into  a  state 
without  inner  friction,  and  keeping  us  in 
the  experience  of  perfect  peace.  It  seems 
to  stand  at  the  opening  of  our  real  place 
of  service  and  say — "This  is  the  way,  walk 
ye  in  it." 

Human  history  is  full  of  the  records  of 
those  who  have  patiently  borne  the  ills  of 
life,  believing  that  the  way  would  emerge 
into  view,  and  they  have  eventually  come 
forth  to  be  the  world's  leaders,  and  have 
looked  back  on  those  days  in  the  school 
of  adversity  from  which  they  graduated 
with  full  honors,  as  a  thing  to  be  proud  of, 
because  it  lead  them  to  the  full  realization 
of  the  divine  life.  Either  of  these  ways — 
direct  or  indirect  or  the  way  of  least 
resistance — may  become  highways  of  life 
along  whose  royal  path  the  soul  may  mount 
up  to  its  own. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  PARABLE  OF  THE  CHRISTMAS  TREE. 

PERSONAL  traits  of  character  and 
variations  in  temperament  have  to 
be  reckoned  with,  for  they  help  or 
hinder  the  realization  of  this  divine 
life  within  us.  Our  early  training 
and  environment  are  large  factors  to 
be  dealt  with  in  solving  the  prob- 
lem of  perfectly  manifesting  the  divine 
life.  Heredity  pours  in  a  stream  of  influ- 
ences that  sometimes  threatens  to  engulf 
us  and  blot  out  the  consciousness  of  our 
divine  nature,  dignity,  and  destiny.  In 
the  face  of  these  and  possibly  other 
impediments,  stands  the  Infinite  life  with- 
in and  about  us,  ready  to  work  with  or  in 
spite  of  them,  as  the  case  may  require, 
waiting  only  on  the  action  of  our  own 
choice — just  as  in  a  well-wired  house  every 
room  is  reached  by  a  live  wire  waiting 
only  the  pressing  of  a  button  to  rush  in 
and  flood  the  darkest  room  with  light, 
warmth,  and  cheer.  That  factor  of  human 
personality  called  the  will  controls  the 
flood-gates  of  the  Infinite  life  which  will 
pour  in,  re-creating  environments,  over- 


66  The    Voice     Eternal 

hauling  temperaments,  and  transforming 
the  evil  tendencies  of  heredity  into  engines 
of  good.  A  man  can  be  anything  he  wants 
to  be  and  do  anything  he  wants  to  do  if 
he  goes  at  it  intelligently  and  with  deter- 
mination. Nothing  is  out  of  his  reach. 
Believing  in  this  unlimited  life  that  dwells 
in  him,  and  in  his  right  and  power  to  call 
upon  it,  all  things  are  possible.  He  laughs 
at  impossibilities  and  cries  "It  shall  be 
done."  Whether  one  travels  by  the  old 
beaten  paths  of  evangelical  trust,  or  by  the 
new  road  of  philosophical  idealism,  the 
means  and  the  end  are  alike  and  the  result 
is  assured.  The  full  persuasion  of  the  fact 
of  the  atonement  with  God,  and  the  accept- 
ance as  a  verity  of  the  inherent  powers  of 
the  Soul  to  partake  and  manifest  the 
divine  nature,  are  the  conditions  of 
realization. 

We  are  often  met  by  the  circumstances 
that  one  person  comes  into  this  realiza- 
tion with  seemingly  little  or  no  effort  of 
faith  or  will,  while  another  attains  to  it 
only  after  long  and  painful  effort.  It 
may  be  explained  by  the  influences  of 
heredity  as  giving  us  varying  physical 
constitution  and  mental  temperament,  but 


Parable  of  the  Christmas  Tree    67 

a  more  familiar  and  satisfactory  answer 
to  many  will  be  found  in  two  scriptural 
quotations  and  a  modern  parable.  In  I. 
Corinthians,  12th  Chapter,  there  is  an 
enumeration  of  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit, 
while  in  Galatians,  5th  Chapter,  there  is 
a  list  of  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit.  Now  it 
so  happens  that  faith,  the  power  to  be- 
lieve things  seen  or  unseen,  is  both  a  gift 
and  a  fruit,  the  difference  between  them 
being  like  the  difference  between  a  Christ- 
mas tree  and  a  fruit  tree.  In  the  one  case 
the  products  on  the  tree  are  the  result  of 
action  outside  of  the  tree  and  its  processes 
of  growth;  in  the  other,  the  fruits  are 
produced  by  an  inward  process  of  the 
forces  of  the  tree-life  itself.  Faith  as  a 
fruit  is  the  result  of  right  thinking,  care- 
ful training,  and  correct  observation  of 
the  experience  of  ourselves  and  others. 
Faith  is  confidence  founded  on  knowledge 
of  its  object.  Its  three  great  fields  of 
action  in  our  material  life  are  in  the 
operation  of  the  laws  of  Nature,  and  of 
cause  and  effect,  and  in  our  fellow-man. 
Just  as  our  faith  in  the  laws  of  Nature, 
or  those  of  cause  and  effect,  is  based  upon 
their  known  and  uniform  action,  so  is  our 


68  The     Voice     Eternal 

faith  in  our  fellow  determined  by 
our  knowledge  of  his  character  and  re- 
sources. We  may  have  no  confidence  in 
a  total  stranger,  but  if  he  bears  a  certifi- 
cate of  worth  from  our  intimate  friend 
who  knows  him,  that  changes  it  and  we 
trust  it  and  we  trust  him  because  of  our 
friend's  knowledge  of  him.  Likewise  our 
faith  in  God  is  confidence  based  on  our 
knowledge  of  his  character  and  resources 
as  they  are  manifested  to  or  in  us,  or  our 
friends.  And  this  fruit  of  faith,  the  result 
of  a  process  going  on  within  us,  is  an 
ever  increasing  quality.  The  prophecy  of 
the  Infinite  life  is  "It  shall  come  to  pass." 
The  history  of  human  experience  is  "It 
came  to  pass."  Upon  these  two  facts 
faith  moves  forward  to  full  fruition.  It 
remains  true  that  in  one  person  the  fruits 
of  faith  are  of  easy  inception  and  rapid 
of  growth,  while  in  another  the  process  is 
painful  and  slowr.  "The  Jew  requires  a 
sign"— to  cast  a  rod  on  the  floor  and  let 
it  become  a  serpent  was  enough  for  him. 
"The  Greek  seeks  after  wisdom."  He 
had  to  be  "shown,"  to  have  it  all  reasoned 
out.  With  this  hint  as  to  the  nature  of 
faith  and  its  growth,  it  ought  also  to  be 


Parable  of  the  Christmas  Tree    69 

said  that  one  may  tamper  with  the  facts 
in  evidence  and  the  laws  of  belief,  until 
he  finds  himself  unable  to  believe  any- 
thing, and  his  is  henceforth  a  barren  life. 
Turn  we  now  to  faith  as  a  gift  and  we 
find  men  believing  in  things  for  which 
there  is  no  adequate  reason,  and  thus  be- 
lieving, they  endure  and  triumph  and 
attain  as  seeing  the  invisible,  and  sooner 
or  later  realize  it  in  visible  form.  A  man 
stands  in  the  presence  of  an  impossible 
task  and  with  no  earthly  knowledge  of 
ways  or  means,  calmly  affirms,  "It  shall 
be  done,"  and  it  is.  We  meet  men  who 
are  utter  strangers  and  yet  by  some  intui- 
tive sense  we  perceive  their  worth  and 
trust  them  to  the  uttermost — a  faith  that 
has  no  material  or  objective  warrant.  And 
without  conscious  preparation  or  known 
process,  a  soul  seems  to  step  into  absolute 
confidence  in  the  Infinite  God,  and  appro- 
priate to  itself  his  unlimited  power  for  its 
needs.  It  has  no  struggle  to  realize  the 
truth.  It  believes,  and  acts  upon  that 
belief,  and  the  thing  is  done.  Thus  it  hap- 
pens that  one  person  without  seeming 
effort,  grasps  the  peace,  the  plenty,  the 
health,  the  power  of  the  Infinite  life,  while 


70  The     Voice     Eternal 

another  halts  and  hesitates  and  stumbles 
over  the  truth,  and  even  when  he  sees  it, 
finds  it  difficult  of  realization.  Let  him 
not  falter  nor  covet  a  gift  which  he  may 
not  have,  for  there  is  a  more  excellent  way 
— the  faith  that  worketh  by  love ;  for  while 
gifts  of  all  sorts  may  fail,  the  fruit  of 
patient  persistence  in  well-doing,  promp- 
ted by  love,  can  never  fail.  Love 
sends  us  forth  to  some  kindly  ministry 
to  some  one  more  unfortunate  than  we  are, 
and  in  the  presence  of  his  greater  afflic- 
tion, our  own  seems  as  nothing;  and  cen- 
tering our  attention  on  helping  him,  our 
own  troubles  are  for  the  time  forgotten. 
And  if  we  could  keep  busy  long  enough  so 
that  our  attention  is  permanently  turned 
to  other  things,  most  of  our  ills  would  die 
of  simple  neglect.  The  vast  majority  of 
nervous  people  are  so  busy  thinking  and 
talking  about  themselves,  that  the  first  step 
in  their  relief  is  to  set  them  thinking 
about,  talking  of,  and  working  for,  some- 
thing or  somebody  else.  Altruism  acts  as 
the  witty  Frenchman  said  of  medicine: 
"It  entertains  the  patient  while  nature 
cures  him."  And  altruism  is  born  of  love 
whose  very  language  is  giving.  God  loved 


Parable  of  the  Christmas  Tree    71 

and  gave,  we  love  and  give,  and  are  doubly 
blest  in  doing  so,  bringing  benefit  to  oth- 
ers, and  health  to  ourselves. 

All  mental  and  spiritual  results,  and 
indirectly  all  physical  benefits,  are  con- 
ditioned by  the  exercise  of  faith.  "  Ac- 
cording to  your  faith"  is  the  divinely 
appointed  measure  of  success.  We  pro- 
claim and  really  think  that  we  have  little 
faith,  until  some  one  comes  to  us  with  the 
note  of  attainment  and  certainty  in  his 
voice,  the  glow  of  health  in  his  eyes  and 
face,  the  air  of  conscious  mastery  in  his 
whole  bearing,  and  at  his  word  or  touch, 
our  latent  faith  leaps  into  activity  and  we 
shed  our  ills  as  a  certain  tree  sheds  its  dry 
leaves  at  the  awakening  thrill  of  the  rising 
sap ;  and  the  wonder  of  the  cure  and  the 
fame  of  the  healer  go  forth.  Or  we  are 
far  removed  from  these  masters  of  the 
powers  of  life,  and  sigh  that  we  may  not 
behold  them  with  our  eyes,  and  we  settle 
down  to  the  humdrum  of  dead  level  exis- 
tence, until  one  day  in  our  reading  or 
meditations,  there  speaks  within  us  the 
voice  eternal  saying — "All  things  are 
yours,  and  ye  are  Christ's  and  Christ  is 
God's."  "Ye  are  dead  and  your  life  is 


72  The     Voice     Eternal 

hid  with  Christ  in  God,"  and  we  begin  to 
see  how  our  own  ego  has  been  living 
a  life  separate  and  apart  in  our  think- 
ing of  it,  from  the  eternal  springs  of  exis- 
tence, and  it  is  indeed  a  limited  and  mis- 
erable and  dead  affair ;  and  we  behold  our 
ego — our  self,  passing  up  into  the  divine 
ego — the  Infinite  self  where  our  lives  are 
merged  into  his,  hid  in  him.  Here  we  abide 
in  the  fulness  of  life,  health,  plenty.  No 
plant  that  he  hath  not  planted  shall  pros- 
per. We  behold  our  ills,  the  untimely  fruit 
of  our  erring,  doubting,  fearing  mortal 
thinking,  having  no  place  nor  part  in  the 
full  life  into  which  we  have  entered,  drop 
from  us,  and  we  are  clothed  with  those 
fruits  of  peace,  joy,  hope,  and  Tightness, 
which  issue  only  into  health  and  whole- 
ness, the  visible  proofs  that  indeed  we  see 
God  and  1  ive  in  him. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  LAST  THING  IN  THE  WORLD. 

HOPE  that  springs  immortal  in  the  hu- 
man breast  has  almost  incalculable 
value  as  a  prophylactic  or  preventive 
agency.  It  is  one  of  the  three  cardinal 
Christian  virtues  that  abide,  and  is  set 
forth  as  being  the  last  thing  in  the  world, 
for  the  reason,  doubtless,  that  when  all 
else  is  gone  there  still  is  hope.  As  an 
anchor  it  holds  the  drifting  soul  because 
it  lays  hold  on  the  mysteries  of  God  beyond 
the  veil  of  seen  things.  And  because  that 
in  evangelical  teachings  it  is  born  of  our 
trust  in  the  reality  of  the  visions  of  the 
eternal  future,  it  is  called  "a  living  hope" 
into  which  we  are  begotten.  Equally  prom- 
inent is  its  place  in  those  schemes  of  life 
set  forth  by  philosophy  and  revealed  by 
scientific  research. 

Philosophy,  delving  into  the  economies 
of  existence  and  formulating  them  into 
practical  terms  finds  a  place  for  hope  as 
a  bright  particular  star  in  the  van  of 
human  progress.  What  tangled  skeins  has 
it  not  unwound  ?  What  disasters  has  it  not 
illuminated  ?  Through  what  wildernesses 


74  The     Voice     Eternal 

of  ignorance,  superstition,  and  failure  has 
it  not  led?  What  depths  has  it  not 
sounded  ?  What  heights  has  it  not  scaled  ? 

Likewise  Science,  focussing  its  inquir- 
ing gaze  upon  the  processes  and  problems 
of  world-making  and  world-destiny,  dis- 
covers grounds  upon  which  to  base  a 
rational  hope  in  "a  far-off  divine  event, 
toward  which  the  whole  creation  moves" 
— a  fruition  of  the  ages-long  struggle  of 
material  existence,  glorious  beyond  the 
power  of  words  to  describe  or  the  mind  of 
man  to  conceive. 

With  unveiled  vision  Science  beholds  a 
vast  evolutionary  process  stretching  up 
from  the  first  biological  cell  to  the  complex 
organism  of  man,  by  an  almost  infinite 
series  of  stages,  each  of  which  is  the  foun- 
dation of  a  further  and  upward  movement 
until  out  of  animalness  man  has  come,  an 
animal,  and  yet  more — an  intelligent, 
affectionate  being. 

In  this  process  Science  discovers  a 
dynamic  agent  working  under  conditions 
that  involve  relative  failure,  and  apparent 
experiments,  groping  toward  better  types 
of  life,  as  if  some  being  were  slowly  yet 
surely  perfecting  the  expression  of  his 


The  Last  Thing  in  the   World     75 

being  through  progressive  achievement, 
developing  his  skill  by  mastering  the  dif- 
ficulties attendant  upon  such  growing 
material  expression,  and  finding  an  ever 
larger  self-realization  in  the  progressive 
development  of  the  life  of  the  material 
universe.  It  beholds  hardships,  suffering, 
misery,  struggle,  and  death  in  the  world 
as  incidental  to  the  difficulties  of  his  task, 
bound  up  with  the  adverse  conditions 
which  universally  attend  the  raising  of 
low,  potential  forms  of  energy  up  to  ever 
higher  forms.  These  evils  in  the  problem 
of  earthly  existence  may  not  be  unmixed 
for  they  are  necessary  factors  in  all  up- 
ward progress,  and  as  they  are  left  behind 
when  their  purpose  is  served,  science  pre- 
dicts, with  the  solution  of  the  problem  of 
existence,  the  elimination  of  every  form  of 
evil.  Science  beholds  man  as  the  crown 
of  this  evolutionary  process,  using  this 
stage  of  development  to  project  into  still 
higher  form  the  life  within  him.  Prompted 
by  some  deep  instinct,  some  deathless  im- 
pulse, he  reaches  out  in  constant  effort  to 
join  hands  and  co-operate  with  this 
dynamic  agent  in  so  conditioning  and  ex- 
pressing life  as  to  lessen  suffering,  disease, 


76  The     Voice    Eternal 

and  death,  and  finally  to  eliminate  them, 
and  to  produce  at  last  in  this  world  a 
civilization  in  which  there  is  no  moral  nor 
disease  death  rate.  It  beholds  man,  physi- 
cal man,  having  his  day — a  day  of  brawn 
and  animalism,  until  the  intellect  crowds 
to  the  front  and  the  mental  man  has  his 
day,  of  brilliance  and  enlargement;  which 
in  turn  is  followed  by  a  day  of  spiritual 
activity,  of  inspiration,  and  glory,  when 
patience  and  love  and  faith  and  kindness 
are  revealed  by  the  dynamic  force  finding 
perfect  self-knowledge  and  expression  in 
human  flesh,  and  thus  is  God  evolved  in 
human  form  because  God  was  involved  in 
the  antecedents  of  human  existence.  And 
man's  hope  is  secure,  for  if  "God  only  hath 
immortality,"  man  who  partakes  of  the 
life  of  God  from  which  he  is  inseparable, 
is  also  partaker  of  his  immortality. 

Science  enters  more  minutely  into  this 
process  of  evolution  by  inquiring  into  the 
relation  between  the  physical  and  mental 
life  as  indicated  by  their  apparent  action 
one  upon  the  other,  rejecting  in  their  order 
the  hypotheses,  first,  that  consciousness 
and  brain,  mind  and  body  act  one  upon  the 
other  as  two  distinct  beings  or  substances ; 


The  Last  Thing  in  the  World     77 

or,  second,  that  the  mind  is  only  a  product 
of  the  body,  a  variant  form  of  bodily 
action  in  which  the  brain  secretes  thought 
as  the  liver  secretes  bile ;  or,  third,  that  the 
body  is  only  a  form  or  product  of  one  or 
several  mental  beings ;  and,  fourth,  accept- 
ing the  hypothesis  that  mind  and  body, 
consciousness  and  brain  are  evolved  as  dif- 
ferent forms  of  expression  of  one  and  the 
same  being,  who  is  essentially  spiritual 
and  whose  activities  are  always  mani- 
fested in  parallel  lines,  sometimes  report- 
ing first  as  mental,  sometimes  as  physical, 
but  always  eventually  in  both.  Now  while 
Science  knows  only  these  two  forms  of 
life,  the  mental  and  physical,  it  does  not 
deny  that  there  are  others.  In  fact  its 
findings  demand  an  as  yet  unf  ound  inner- 
most essence  of  existence  to  which  the 
mental  or  subjective  life  stands  nearest, 
and  from  which  both  mental  and  physical 
life  proceed,  thus  bringing  in  sight  our 
double  ancestry — that  of  the  flesh  and  its 
mind — and  the  ancestry  of  the  spirit 
which  makes  God  our  Father,  and  enables 
us  to  affirm  "My  Father  and  I  are  one," 
and  to  sweep  back  past  birthdays  and  say, 
"before  Abraham  was,  I  am." 


78  The     Voice    Eternal 

Now  the  whole  economy  of  human  exis- 
tence hinges  on  the  conflict  between  these 
two  ancestries,  as  to  supremacy.  For  the 
struggle  is  as  old  as  the  race  and  as  new 
as  the  last-born  babe.  Recognizing  that 
life  can  never  reach  the  heights  of  free- 
dom until  the  spirit  gains  the  ascendancy, 
Jesus  said,  "Except  a  man  be  born  of  the 
spirit  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God. 
Except  he  live  in  the  spirit  where  the 
motives  and  ideals  of  the  spiritual  life  are 
in  the  position  of  mastery,  he  cannot  know 
the  "righteousness,  peace,  and  joy"  that 
life  is  intended  to  have  as  its  daily  atmos- 
phere. We  are  apt  to  dwell  too  much  on 
the  fact  of  the  mind  influencing  the  body, 
and  the  body  in  turn  influencing  the  mind, 
and  trying  to  heal  the  one  by  healing  the 
other,  and  fail  to  put  emphasis  upon  the 
spiritual  source  of  life,  and  fail  to  carry 
the  governing  center  of  life  into  the  spirit- 
ual I  am,  whose  infinite  peace  and  health 
and  ease  will  express  itself  in  a  parallel 
manifestation  in  mind  and  body.  This 
does  not  mean  that  life  henceforth  has  no 
conflicts.  The  battle  will  not  be  over  till 
the  sunset  gun  is  fired.  The  hymn  of  the 
spirit-crowned  man  is, 


The  Last  Thing  in  the   World     79 

"Oh  watch  and  fight  and  pray, 
The  battle  ne'er  give  o'er. 
Renew  it  boldly  every  day, 
And  help  divine  implore." 

His  conflicts  are  as  real  as  ever,  but  he  can 
say,  *  '  Thanks  be  to  God  who  giveth  me  the 
victory." 

Now  while  science  can  discover  to  us 
grounds  for  such  a  hope  as  this,  theology 
actually  beholds  God  dwelling  in  the  flesh, 
and  manifesting  the  divine  character  in 
such  a  way  that  to  see  such  an  one  is  to 
see  the  Father,  and  it  calls  that  combina- 
tion the  "Son  of  God,"  and  says  "Beloved 
now  are  we  the  Sons  of  God" ;  and  it  bids 
us  to  come  to  that  place  of  Spiritual 
Supremacy  where  we  can  say  "I  live,  and 
yet  not  I  live,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me,"  and 
its  proof  is  that  we  go  about  doing  good. 
It  is  said  of  Martin  Luther  that  some  one 
halloed  at  his  gate  and  asked,  "Does  Mar- 
tin Luther  live  here?"  and  the  answer  of 
the  sturdy  reformer  was:  "No,  but  Jesus 
Christ  lives  here. ' '  And  he  was  nearer  the 
truth  than  many  of  his  followers,  for  this 
oneness  with  God  was  the  truth  that  Jesus 
Christ  lived,  and  the  boon  which  he  prayed 
that  each  of  his  disciples  and  all  men 


80  The     Voice    Eternal 

might  possess.  Here  then  ends  our  quest. 
Choose  any  field  of  knowledge  we  may,  all 
paths  lead  to  our  divine  birthright — the 
privilege  of  living  the  life  of  God  in  the 
world;  of  manifesting  all  those  qualities 
of  the  divine  character  that  can  be  known 
by  men  only  as  they  see  them  incarnate  in 
human  life;  and  eventually  to  realize  the 
completeness  of  the  divine  life  in  us.  For 
when  Faith  has  fought  its  last  battle,  and 
Love  has  run  its  last  merciful  errand  of 
service,  Hope,  the  ultimate  thing  in  the 
world  will  still  tower  over  the  wrecks  of 
time,  and  stretch  out  expectant  hands  to 
receive  the  perfect  fruition  of  God  dwell- 
ing in  the  flesh.  Something  in  us  answers 
to  our  own. 

"Dwelt  there  no  divineness  in  us, 
How  could  God's  divineness  win  us?" 

Follow  then  this  voice  eternal  along  the 
highways  of  peace,  plenty,  health,  and 
power  until  your  kingdom  is  perfected; 
until  the  "fearful,"  the  "unbelieving," 
and  all  "liars"  are  cast  out,  and  you  can 
"surrender  it  to  God  who  shall  be  all  in 
all." 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  CHRIST  WITHIN 

THAT  we  may  get  the  full  sig- 
nificance of  this  truth  of  the  in- 
dwelling God  follow  me  in  observa- 
tions on  the  most  beautiful  and  far- 
reaching  conception  of  the  spiritual 
ideal  embodied  in  the  gospel  message,  in 
such  verses  as  "I  live,  and  yet  not  I,  but 
Christ  liveth  in  me";  "Ye  are  dead,  and 
your  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God" ;  "Till 
Christ  be  formed  in  you,"  etc.  This  is  the 
heart  of  the  gospel,  the  key  to  its  store- 
house of  life,  health,  love,  and  power.  It 
brings  out  the  mystical  phase  of  the 
Christian  life  so  prominently  that  one  is 
apt  to  ask  what  place  it  can  have  in  a  scien- 
tific, and  philosophical  religious  move- 
ment. The  answer  lies  in  the  simple  fact 
that  the  power  of  a  suggestion  concerning 
a  person  or  a  supposed  truth  depends  on 
our  conception  of  the  scope  of  the  truth, 
or  the  character  and  power  of  the  person 
in  whose  hands  we  place  our  welfare.  For 
instance  we  are  much  more  apt  to  trust 
fully  a  physician  of  years  of  experience 
and  a  great  reputation,  than  we  are  to  call 


82  The     Voice     Eternal 

in  a  young  man  just  out  of  the  medical 
school.  So  likewise  if  the  one  giving  us 
a  suggestion  of  any  sort  be  known  as  a 
mere  tyro  in  the  knowledge  of  mental  and 
spiritual  things  as  healing  forces,  his  sug- 
gestions will  have  little  influence  on  us, 
while  if  we  esteem  him  as  a  master  or  an 
adept  in  such  wisdom  then  he  speaks  to  us 
with  the  voice  of  authority,  and  not  as  the 
scribes,  and  sin,  and  disease,  and  sickness 
of  all  sorts  of  human  ills  pass  out  at  his 
word.  Likewise  when  we  are  giving  our- 
selves suggestions  if  the  truth  is  conceived 
as  a  partial  and  limited  one,  the  results 
will  be  meager,  while  if  we  conceive  the 
truth  to  take  on  the  character  of  an  uni- 
versal law  the  results  in  health  and  welfare 
will  be  greatly  magnified;  or  if  we  think 
of  ourselves  as  "poor  weak  worms  of  the 
dust"  suggestions  coming  from  such  a 
source  will  be  greatly  weakened,  if  not 
countered  altogether. 

Now  if,  instead  of  a  self  that  can  do 
nothing,  we  face  our  ills  with  the  thought 
that,  "I  can  do  all  things  through  Christ 
that  strengthened  rne,"  our  suggestions 
will  have  in  them  the  authority  of  the  Son 
of  God  and  they  cannot  fail.  The  place 


The     Christ     Within  83 

therefore  of  the  Christ  in  any  scheme  for 
moral,  social,  or  physical  betterment  is 
secure  for  the  highest  authority  that  can  be 
given  to  a  movement  is  to  quote  him  as 
being  its  leader.  And  for  an  individual 
to  have  truly  found  the  Christ  within,  of 
whom  Moses  and  the  prophets  did  write, 
is  to  have  started  on  the  pathway  of  wis- 
dom that  will  at  last  unfold  and  exemplify 
every  problem  of  life.  But  let  us  be  sure 
that  we  have  found  him  in  the  true  sense 
of  the  term.  Jesus  the  Saviour  said,  "Of 
myself  I  can  do  nothing.  The  Father  that 
dwell  eth  in  me  He  doeth  the  works." 
That  is  to  say  the  human  Jesus  could  not 
do  those  mighty  works,  but  the  divine 
Christ  in  him  could  and  did.  We  must 
recognise  the  essential  humanity  of  Jesus 
our  Lord  because  he  so  often  spoke  and 
acted  and  lived  like  a  man.  We  have  also 
to  recognize  his  divinity  because  he  so 
often  spoke  and  acted  like  a  divine  person. 
It  was  the  human  Jesus  who  was  weary 
with  long  journeys,  arduous  toils,  and 
ceaseless  vigils;  it  was  the  human  Jesus 
who  fainted  on  the  last  journey  and  died 
on  the  cross.  It  was  the  divine  Christ  who 
opened  the  eyes  of  the  blind,  cast  out  dev- 


84  The     Voice    Eternal 

ils,  raised  the  dead,  healed  the  lepers,  and 
said  to  the  tired  world,  "Come  unto  me 
and  find  rest."  That  same  dual  nature 
is  consciously  in  every  man.  The  purely 
human  with  its  ills  and  aches,  its  sorrows 
and  troubles,  stumbling  through  life  so 
self-centered  and  engrossed  that  we  never 
catch  a  glimpse  of  the  divine  nature  of 
which  we  are  partakers,  a  christing — an 
anointing  that  abideth  so  that  "we 
need  not  that  any  man  teach  us"  as  St. 
John  says.  We  utterly  fail  to  call  on  a 
power  within  us  that  will  banish  all  our 
ills,  diseases,  and  troubles,  and  enable  us 
to  live  in  the  fulness  of  peace,  health,  love, 
and  power.  When  he  said  "Come  unto 
me"  it  was  not  to  the  human  Jesus  but 
to  the  divine  Christ — the  life  of  God  that 
dwelt  within  him.  His  effort  was  always 
to  get  those  who  came  to  him  to  look  to  the 
Father  who  was  abiding  in  him,  whose 
words  he  spoke  and  whose  works  he  did, 
and  of  whom  he  could  say,  "I  and  the 
Father  are  one,"  that  they  might  realize 
their  oneness  with  the  Father  as  he  had 
realized  it.  Finally  he  said  one  day  that 
it  was  expedient  for  them  that  he  should 
go  away,  else  the  comforter  would  not 


The     Christ     Within  85 

come — they  would  never  enter  into  the 
fulness  of  their  inheritance  so  long  as 
they  had  him  to  depend  on.  He  was 
trying  to  get  them  to  see  that  the  object 
of  all  seeking  was  the  Father,  and  that 
the  Father  was  waiting  to  become  the 
Christ — the  anointed  in  them.  But  they 
were  so  busy  clinging  to  his  mortal  self, 
for  the  loaves  and  the  fishes,  and  the  evi- 
dence of  the  senses  that  unless  he  went 
away  they  would  keep  on  looking  to  his 
personality  and  would  never  know  that 
the  same  spirit  of  truth  who  was  so 
mighty  in  him  was  waiting  to  manifest  his 
power  in  them  as  soon  as  they  recognized 
their  oneness  with  him.  The  Infinite 
power  which  had  hitherto  had  but  one 
power  station  was  henceforth  to  have  a 
station  in  every  man  who  accepted  his 
divine  heritage,  and  out  from  him  would 
go  those  same  marvelous  virtues  that 
wrought  the  blessings  of  peace  and  health 
at  the  touch  and  word  of  the  man  of 
Nazareth.  "Out  of  his  heart  shall  flow 
rivers  of  living  water." 

To  teach  men  and  lead  them  into  these 
privileges  he  left  directions  for  the 
organization  of  his  church  with  certain 


86  The     Voice     Eternal 

symbolic  forms  setting  forth  the  entering 
into  and  manifestation  of  Christ-like 
life.  St.  Paul  said  that  when  a  man  is 
"baptized  into  Christ"  he  "puts  on 
Christ."  In  other  words  attending  that 
outward  form  is  a  spiritual  content — an 
inner  substance,  which  is  nothing  less  than 
the  conscious  recognition  that  the  Christ 
of  God  is  in  us  as  he  was  in  Jesus  of  Naz- 
areth. And  in  the  act  of  Confirmation 
the  believer's  attention  is  directed  to  the 
sevenfold  gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which 
he  is  taught  to  believe  now  abides  in  him 
waiting  to  be  called  on  that  he  may  show 
forth  his  power,  so  that  it  is  the  final  act 
by  which  the  believer  is  ceremonially  in- 
ducted into  the  Christ-life.  Then  if  he  has 
indeed  accepted  the  real  content  of  the 
gospel  message  he  can  say,  "I  live  and  yet 
not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me."  And  that 
this  life  ma}7  flourish  we  are  invited  to  a 
Holy  Supper  whose  consecrated  elements 
feed  the  body  and  suggest  how  the  life  of 
God  is  constantly  imparted  to  the  life 
within  us. 

Now  if  there  be  any  difference  between 
this  Christ-life  and  the  Christian  life  I 
should  say  that  it  was  this;  a  Christian 


The     Christ     Within  87 

life  consists  in  following  after  the  exam- 
ple of  Christ,  submitting  to  his  ordinances, 
imitating  his  good  works  and  seeking  to 
obey  a  Christ  and  a  God  who  are  outside, 
apart  from  and  above  us  somewhere,  who 
may  be  persuaded  to  hear  our  petitions 
and  forgive  our  sins  and  at  last  get  home 
to  heaven.  A  Christ-life  in  a  word  is  a 
looking  to  the  Christ  within  us,  and  letting 
him  manifest  his  divine  presence  and 
power  as  the  son  of  God — a  state  of  con- 
scious oneness  with  God  that  enables  its 
possessor  to  say,  "All  things  are  mine, 
and  mine  is  Christ's  and  Christ  is 
God's."  Now  just  what  that  means  wre  can 
gather  from  the  incident  of  Jesus  asleep 
on  the  hard  seat  of  the  fisherman's  boat 
in  the  midst  of  a  raging  storm.  The  mere 
fact  of  his  divine  presence  did  not  keep 
the  wind  from  blowing,  the  boat  from 
rocking,  nor  the  disciples  from  feeling 
terrified.  But  when  he  was  awakened 
and  called  upon,  he  arose,  and  at  once  the 
divine  life  was  manifest,  he  rebuked  the 
wind  and  the  sea  and  there  was  a  great 
calm.  Has  not  our  boat  been  rocked  by 
disease,  sorrow,  poverty,  worry,  and  what 
not,  simply  because  we  do  not  awaken  the 


88  The    Voice    Eternal 

Christ  within  us  and  call  upon  him  to 
manifest  in  us  the  hope  of  glory.  "  Be- 
loved now  are  we  the  sons  of  God  ....  and 
we  shall  be  like  him  when  He  shall 
appear. ' '  In  other  words,  when  the  Christ 
in  us  is  manifest  he  will  be  like  the  Christ 
that  was  manifest  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  in 
whom  all  fulness  of  love,  of  life,  of  power, 
of  joy,  of  all  good  dwelt.  So  that  we  are 
complete  in  this  Christ-life,  and  can  boldly 
say,  "In  Christ  all  things  are  mine,"  "I 
can  do  all  things  through  Christ  that 
strengthened  me."  So  that  if  you  are 
manifesting  sickness  it  is  because  your 
attention  is  fixed  upon  the  circumference 
of  life  and  you  are  to  turn  away  from  that 
to  the  center  of  your  being  where  the 
Infinite  dwells  and  say,  "Christ  is  my  life, 
Christ  is  my  health,  Christ  is  my  strength, 
Christ  is  perfect,  I  will  now  manifest 
Christ,"  Say  it  with  the  certainty  that  it 
is  the  truth  of  all  truths,  and  you  will  feel 
the  fountain  of  your  life  bubble  over  with 
a  strange  new  power  that  radiates  through 
sickness,  disease  and  pain,  and  displaces 
them  by  manifesting  the  health  that  was 
in  Jesus. 

Suppose  that  it  is  money  you  need,  not 


The     Christ     Within  89 

want  but  actually  need.  Here  is  a  bank 
note  that  unlike  all  other  bank  notes  can 
be  cashed  every  day  of  our  lives  and  be  as 
good  as  ever  the  next  day.  It  is  "My  God 
shall  supply  all  your  need  according  to  his 
riches  in  glory  by  Christ  Jesus."  Phil.  4, 
19.  Now  read  it  intelligently.  ' '  My  God" 
—that's  the  banker's  name — "shall  sup- 
ply" —that  is  his  promise  to  pay — "all 
your  need"-  —that's  the  size  of  the  check— 
"according  to  his  riches" — that's  the 
bank's  capital — "in  glory"  that's  the 
bank's  location — "by  Christ  Jesus"  that's 
the  cashier's  name.  Why  should  you  go 
about  thinking  poverty,  and  manifesting 
poverty,  when  all  the  time  your  father  is 
rich  in  houses  and  lands,  and  holdeth  the 
wealth  of  the  worlds  in  his  hands.  Say 
to  yourself,  ' '  Christ  is  my  abundant  sup- 
ply; he  is  here  in  me  now  and  greatly 
desires  to  manifest  himself  as  my  supply ; 
his  desires  are  fulfilled  now  and  I  am  filled 
full  of  all  needed  things."  Don't  begin 
to  ask  how  he  is  going  to  do  this ;  probably 
it  will  be  the  very  way  that  you  would 
never  think  about,  but  just  hold  to  the 
thought  that  he  is  your  abundant  supply, 
and  that  he  will  honor  vour  faith  a  hun- 


The     Voice    Eternal 


dred  fold.  We  have  only  to  choose  to  have 
him  do  this  for  us,  and  having  once  put 
the  matter  in  his  hands,  let  it  rest  with  him 
who  longs  to  be  to  us  through  Christ  the 
abundance  of  all  things  that  we  need,  nor 
try  to  take  it  back,  but  say  to  ourselves, 
"It  is  done;  God  hath  blessed  us  with  all 
spiritual  blessings  in  heavenly  places  in 
Christ."  We  have  now  only  to  wait  in 
perfect  faith  for  the  manifestation  of  that 
which  we  have  asked.  It  is  not  easy  to 
trust  the  Christ  within  us  for  all  things 
when  we  first  begin.  Such  a  habit  is  not 
spontaneous,  it  comes  only  after  repeated 
effort  and  repeated  proof  that  it  is  the 
royal  highway  to  peace,  plenty,  and  power. 
We  begin  by  trusting  him  with  small 
things,  but  by  and  by  we  come  to  trust  him 
for  all  things. 

The  question  of  what  was  Jesus  doing 
before  he  came  working  his  wonders  has 
never  been  satisf  actor ily  answered,  but  we 
know  that  when  some  man  comes  working 
the  works  of  Jesus,  healing  the  sick,  loos- 
ing the  bound,  etc.,  then  know  that  he  did 
not  come  into  this  faith  in  a  moment,  but 
that  with  clenched  fists  and  face  set  as  a 
flint  he  has  held  fast  to  the  Christ  within, 


The     Christ     Within  91 

trusting  where  he  could  not  see,  until  he 
found  himself  manifesting  "the  faith  of 
the  Son  of  God."  Begin  by  thinking  and 
acting  these  things  and  you  will  come  to 
know  the  Christ  the  spirit  of  truth. 

And  remember  that  the  key  word  to  all 
this  attainment  is  NOW.  With  God  there 
is  but  one  time — the  eternal  NOW.  Say- 
ing or  believing  that  salvation  for  the  soul 
or  health  for  the  body  are  somewhere  in 
the  future  always  puts  them  somewhere 
in  the  future  and  just  beyond  our  grasp. 
Behold  now  is  the  accepted  time  for  all 
forward  movements  for  the  personal  wel- 
fare. Jesus  said  nothing  about  our 
being  saved  from  our  distresses  in 
the  future,  or  after  death,  but  now. 
God's  work  is  finished  in  us  now, 
the  moment  we  believe.  To  be  sure 
Christ  manifests  himself  in  different 
ways,  and  we  must  be  content  to  walk  in 
ways  that  we  would  not  have  chosen  for 
the  voice  of  the  Christ  within  will  direct 
us  unerringly  where  he  wants  us  to  go. 
Like  Abraham  who  followed  the  inner 
voice  not  knowing  where  he  went — from 
one  act  of  faith  to  another  until  God  said 


92  The     Voice     Eternal 

to  him,  "  Because  thou  hast  done  this  I 
will  both  bless  thee  and  make  thee'a  bless- 
ing." 

Get  out  of  this  chapter  then  some  practi- 
cal help.  Why  should  we  worry  about 
tomorrow?  We  cannot  live  it  till  it 
arrives,  and  then  only  a  moment  at  a  time. 
Fill  the  present  NOW,  the  day  and  hour 
with  hope  and  trust  and  praise  and  ser- 
vice. Why  worry  ye  for  tomorrow,  suffi- 
cient for.  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof,  and 
for  that  matter  the  good  thereof.  When 
the  worry  fog  begins  to  darken  the  soul, 
shine  on  it  with  all  the  optimism  of  faith 
in  the  Christ  within  you,  and  level  on  it 
all  the  guns  of  a  sane  philosophy.  Say 
to  yourself,  "I  will  not  worry,  for  every 
worry  thought  weakens  me  for  the  conflict 
when  it  comes.  It  may  never  come,  but 
if  so  I  will  not  concern  myself  about  it 
until  it  arrives,  and  then  I  shall  have  all 
my  powers  conserved  to  meet  it  in 
triumph. " 

The  second  idea  to  always  hold  in  mind 
is,  that  the  Christ  that  was  in  Jesus  must 
ever  be  going  about  doing  good,  must  be 
going  out  to  others  pointing  out  to  them 
the  secret  that  deliverance  from  every  ill 


The     Christ     Within  93 

of  this  life  lay  in  the  truth  of  the 
FATHER  IN  THEM  and  patiently  wait- 
ing and  working  till  they  were  awakened 
to  this  understanding  of  life. 

And  the  Christ  in  us  will  first  be  con- 
tent with  our  recognition  of  the  fact,  but 
ere  long  we  must  pass  the  word  out  to 
others,  and  he  will  not  be  content  until  we 
have  begun  at  Jerusalem  (at  home)  and 
finished  by  telling  it  to  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  earth.  Have  you  grasped  the 
truth?  Pass  it  on.  Does  Christ  dwelling 
in  you  become  the  dominant,  triumphant 
factor  in  your  life  ?  Pass  it  on,  and  do  it 
with  all  the  tact  and  patience  of  Jesus, 
telling  one  to  go  and  shew  the  health 
authorities,  and  another  to  tell  no  man. 
Go  about  doing  good.  Help  to  awaken  the 
sleeping  passenger  on  board  so  many  of 
these  storm-tossed  lives  that  he  may  arise 
and  speak  peace  to  them,  and  after  awhile 
you  will  be  able  to  say,  "  Christ  is  all  and 
in  all  to  me." 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE   SPIRITUAL   BASIS   OF   HEALTH. 

NOT  by  might  nor  by  power  but  by 
my  spirit  saith  the  Lord,"  tells 
us  in  so  many  words  that  all  power  in  its 
last  analysis  is  spiritual.  In  all  things 
earthly  there  is  first  that  which  is  natural, 
and  then  that  which  is  spiritual.  All 
materials  things  are  the  expression  of 
things  profoundly  spiritual.  And  it  is  by 
the  study  of  material  things  with  essen- 
tially this  conception  ever  before  us  that 
we  come  to  a  correct  view  of  spiritual 
things.  St.  Paul  says,  "For  the  invisible 
things  of  God,  even  his  eternal  power  and 
Godhead,  are  clearly  seen  through  the 
creation  of  the  world,  being  understood 
by  the  things  that  are  made."  The  uni- 
verse is  built  after  the  human  plan,  and 
man  is  in  the  image  of  God,  so  that  we 
have  made  the  first  great  step  toward  the 
knowledge  of  God  when  we  have  mas- 
tered the  knowledge  of  ourselves.  We 
have  a  material  body  and  dwelling  in  it 
and  co-extensive  with  it  is  a  spiritual 
body  with  organs  of  similar  character 
and  function.  This  spiritual  body  is  the 


The  Spiritual  B  a  s  i  s  of  Health      95 

Subconscious  self.  The  conscious  side  of 
the  mind  does  not  seem  to  have  any  ex- 
istence apart  from  the  union  of  these  two. 
The  child  begins  to  develop  consciousness 
when  the  light  falls  on  the  eye,  or  when 
after  repeated  experiences  it  becomes  con- 
scious of  its  mother  as  the  source  of  nu- 
trition. And  so  step  by  step  the  con- 
scious mind  as  a  function  of  this  union  of  a 
spiritual  and  material  being  is  developed. 
With  its  various  methods  of  reasoning  it 
is  fitted  to  exercise  the  office  of  monitor 
in  this  world  of  truth  and  error,  but  will 
be  unnecessary  in  a  world  where  only 
truth  exists.  In  the  day  when  this  union 
is  dissolved  this  function  ceases  and  its 
thoughts  perish.  The  subconscious  is  the 
real  immortal,  spiritual  part  of  us.  It  is 
this  with  which  the  Infinite  Spirit  is  iden- 
tified and  inseparably  joined.  It  is 
through  the  Subconscious  that  the  spirit 
manifests  forth  himself  in  the  form  of 
flesh  and  blood.  It  is  here  that  the  ele- 
ments of  the  divine  character  are  devel- 
oped. The  part  played  by  the  conscious 
mind  in  this  process  is  pictured  out  in  the 
32nd  chapter  of  Exodus  where  Objective 
Moses  argues  with  Subjective  Moses  and 


96  The    Voice     Eternal 

points  out  to  him  a  better  way.  All  the 
tides  of  the  Infinite  life  move  into  us  from 
the  Subjective  side,  and  are  guided  and 
used  under  the  direction  of  the  Objective 
side. 

Every  age  has  had  its  method  of  con- 
tacting this  Infinite  life  and  using  its 
power  and  energies.  Any  exercise  by 
which  the  Objective  has  been  held  more 
or  less  in  abeyance  has  been  most  effect- 
ive. There  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  life 
given  up  to  meditation,  prayer,  and  good 
works  will  manifest  more  of  that  spirit 
than  one  which  does  not  so  exercise  itself. 
On  the  same  principle  of  exalting  the 
subjective  a  person  under  the  stress  of  a 
great  emotion  growing  out  of  personal 
peril,  or  that  of  a  loved  one,  or  danger  to 
country,  will  find  himself  doing  prodigies 
of  valor.  Under  such  conditions  the  eyes 
will  flash,  the  face  will  glow  and  the  body 
will  be  filled  with  a  new  and  strange 
energy.  A  weak  and  fragile  body  will 
seem  to  be  indued  with  tireless  strength, 
and  the  devout  soul  will  realize  that  he  is 
helped  of  God,  and  wTill  say,  "I  could  not 
have  done  it  myself,  God  helped  me." 
That  one  supreme  authority  on  the  spir- 


The  Spiritual  Basis  of  Health     97 

itual  experiences  of  humanity,  the  Bible, 
abounds  in  illustrations  of  this  fact.  Now 
it  is  also  true  that  what  is  accomplished 
under  the  pressure  of  some  great  crisis, 
in  which  we  contact  God,  may  be  as  truly 
and  fully  achieved  under  the  conditions 
of  normal  life,  by  knowing  and  apply- 
ing the  laws  of  the  spiritual  life,  in  ac- 
cepting and  affirming  our  oneness  with  the 
Spirit  with  all  that  it  means,  and  so  let- 
ting God  augment  our  strength,  by  iden- 
tifying himself  with  our  life.  And  it  is 
true  beyond  any  reasonable  doubt  that 
the  measure  of  our  power  is  found  in  the 
sort  of  instrument  we  furnish  the  Spirit 
to  work  in  and  through. 

And  it  is  also  true  that  there  is  no  es- 
sential difference  between  the  power  that 
is  manifest  in  the  normal  life  when  we 
speak  the  healing  word,  or  touch  with 
the  hand  that  gives  health — actions  born 
out  of  an  abiding  sense  of  the  Infinite, 
and  the  power  that  manifests  in  the  word 
or  touch  when  done  under  the  sense  of  a 
mighty  tide  of  spiritual  emotion  or  in- 
spiration. Whatever  difference  there  is 
consists  of  quantity  or  volume  and  not  of 
quality.  It  is  all  of  God.  But  we  have 


98  The     Voice     Eternal 

always  to  refer  things  to  their  divine 
source,  as  when  our  Lord  attributed  his 
miracle  working  power  to  the  Father. 
"The  works  that  I  do,  I  do  not  of  myself, 
but  the  Father  that  dwelleth  in  me,  He 
doeth  the  works."  So  his  words  of  wis- 
dom were  referred  to  the  same  source. 
On  the  other  hand  it  was,  "The  words 
that  I  speak  unto  you  they  are  spirit 
and  they  are  life."  "I  will,  be  thou 
clean."  "Take  up  thy  bed  and  walk." 
In  like  manner  our  absolute  de- 
pendence on  the  spirit  is  always  be- 
ing emphasized.  "Without  me  ye  can 
do  nothing"  is  the  true  statement 
that  all  our  power  to  do  anything  is  de- 
rived from  him,  whether  it  be  the  small- 
est duty  or  the  acts  that  are  to  be  epoch- 
making  in  our  own  or  others'  lives,  and 
therefore  the  whole  question  of  power 
must  be  referred  to  God."  I  have  read 
once,  yea  twice,  that  power  belongeth  to 
God."  On  the  other  hand,  such  words 
as,  "Ye  shall  ask  what  ye  will";  "Be 
it  unto  thee  even  as  thou  wilt,"  seem 
to  place  the  conditioning  of  that 
power  within  ourselves.  In  a  wrord, 
God  works  power  in  as  we  work  it  out.  It 


The  Spiritual  Basis  of  Health      99 

is  merely  a  question  of  how  to  let  that 
divine  power  find  expression  in  any  in- 
dividual. 

In  the  transmission  of  electric  power 
the  two  main  factors  are  those  of  insula- 
tion and  carrying  capacity,  or  the  size 
and  quality  of  the  wire.  No  matter  with 
what  rapidity  the  armature  may  sweep 
over  the  magnetic  field  unless  these  two 
conditions  be  favorable  there  will  be  little 
or  no  transmission  of  power.  And  it  is 
certain  that  unless  these  same  conditions 
are  present  in  spiritual  activities  there 
will  be  no  reception  or  transmission  of 
spiritual  energy.  The  fact  is  clear  that 
the  limitless  power  of  the  Living  God  is 
about  us  and  in  us  pressing  for  expres- 
sion, and  it  can  be  found  by  the  insulation 
of  the  Subconscious,  which  is  done  in 
greater  or  less  degree  in  such  exercises  as 
prayer,  religious  meditation,  patience 
under  great  affliction,  heroic  fidelity  to 
great  ideals  and  principles,  loving  service, 
and  other  activities  in  which  most  church 
people  engage.  Some  who  have  been  most 
effective  instruments  for  the  Spirit  have 
had  no  other  thought  of  how  they  could 
attain  except  by  ceaseless  vigils,  fasting, 
and  importunate  prayer.  Our  Lord  him- 


100  The     Voice    Eternal 

self  found  it  necessary  to  go  apart  into 
mountain  and  desert  places  where  he 
might  commune  with  his  Father,  and  he 
and  his  disciples  have  opportunity  to  re- 
cuperate their  depleted  forces.  This  prac- 
tice of  being  alone  with  God  has  never 
been  improved  on,  although  the  method  of 
its  practice  may  differ.  One  may  by  prac- 
tice hold  his  objective  faculties  in  a 
passive  state,  inhibit  all  conscious  thought, 
and  so  open  wide  the  channel  of  the  sub- 
conscious through  which  the  limitless 
power  of  God  may  flow  to  accomplish  any 
purpose  toward  which  it  may  be  directed. 
So  that  "he  may  ask  what  he  will  and  it 
shall  be  done."  This  brings  us  inevitably 
to  the  fact  that  it  is  the  wrill  that  deter- 
mines the  volume  of  power  that  shall  be 
manifested.  When  one  has  made  the  in- 
sulation complete,  it  is  then  with  a  sense 
of  perfect  authority  that  he  can  say,  "I 
will,  be  thou  healed,"  and  know  that  it 
shall  be  done.  It  is  well  therefore  to 
study  the  methods  of  cultivating  the 
will  power  so  that  in  the  emergencies  of 
life  without  clenching  your  fists,  or  set- 
ting your  jaw,  or  knitting  your  brow, 
you  may  at  will  drawr  all  the  supplies  you 


The  Spiritual  Basis  of  Health    101 

need,  as  calmly  as  you  do  in  the  ordinary 
duties  of  life.  I  do  not  think  of  anything 
that  so  thoroughly  impresses  this  idea  as 
the  sight  of  a  trolley  car  running  along 
with  its  outstretched  arm  reaching  for 
power,  without  which  it  cannot  go.  And 
there  is  that  sense  of  utter  dependence  on 
the  spirit's  power  that  keeps  the  inner 
eye  forever  on  the  source  of  power,  and 
the  subjective  arm  reaching  out  to  touch 
the  live  wire  of  Omnipotence.  And  out 
of  this  there  comes  the  confidence  that 
can  say  to  a  sick  friend,  "You  are  going 
to  be  better,  and  you  will  gradually  come 
back  to  perfect  health,"  and  know  that  it 
will  be  as  you  have  said.  Until  you  are 
consciously  in  touch  with  the  Spirit  there 
will  be  the  lack  of  positive  certainty  with 
which  you  speak  the  healing  word.  This 
established  and  your  will  lays  hold  of  all 
energy  so  that  you  may  live  with  a  mini- 
mum of  ills  and  a  maximum  of  comfort 
in  serving  yourself  and  others. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  normal 
life  is  intended  to  pass  on  its  journey 
without  the  handicap  of  all  such  ills  as 
most  people  endure.  And  if  it  seems  that 
the  bulk  of  human  experience  contradicts 


102  The     Voice    Eternal 

this  statement,  we  have  to  remember  that 
probably  not  one  in  a  hundred  of  us  had 
the  advantage  of  a  good  start  in  the  world. 
Upon  our  arrival,  in  addition  to  the  im- 
pediments of  heredity,  we  found  the  ig- 
norance, superstition,  and  general  blun- 
dering of  those  in  charge  of  us,  responsi- 
ble for  a  lot  of  bad  kinks  in  our  stock  in 
trade  for  the  career  on  which  we  had  en- 
tered. Thus  it  happens  that  most  of  us 
have  a  large  assortment  of  abnormal  con- 
ditions on  hand  with  which  to  start,  and 
then  we  have  the  blunders  and  follies  of 
youth,  and  the  mistakes  that  grow  out  of 
early  bigotry  and  ignorance  all  to  outlive 
and  undo  before  we  can  reach  the  place 
of  actually  living  a  normal  life.  And 
often  before  we  have  unloaded  this  in- 
cubus we  have  entered  upon  some  career 
from  which  we  find  it  difficult  or  impos- 
sible to  extricate  ourselves  if  we  ever  want 
to.  So  often  I  have  had  some  one  come 
to  me  wanting  to  enter  upon  some  mis- 
sion of  service  to  his  fellows,  and  I  have 
had  to  point  out  to  him  that  he  could  not 
impart  to  others  what  he  did  not  himself 
possess.  I  have  had  those  who  felt  called 
to  mission  fields,  and  after  starting  in  and 


The  Spiritual  Basis  of  Health    103 

getting  into  possession  of  health,  and  the 
right  poise  of  mind,  they  discovered  that 
they  had  no  possible  business  going  to 
mission  fields.  This  does  not  mean  to  say 
that  such  a  divine  call  does  not  come  to 
normal  people  to  do  such  work,  but  I  am 
rather  saying  that  things  often  seem  ut- 
terly different  to  one  in  sickness  and  in 
health,  and  am  emphasizing  the  fact  that 
our  first  great  problem  is  the  mastery  of 
ourselves. 

The  discovery  that  there  is  within  us  a 
vast  unused  reservoir  of  power  awaiting 
our  exploitation  is  the  challenge  to  enter 
at  once  on  a  campaign  of  self-knowledge 
and  of  the  use  of  these  forces  so  that  we 
may  undo  the  ravages  of  disease,  break 
the  power  of  bad  mental  and  physical 
habits,  and  get  up  to  the  plane  of  normal 
living. 

To  do  this  requires,  first,  the  conviction 
that  the  forces  within  you  and  contigu- 
ous to  you  are  sufficient  for  all  your 
needs.  That  all  possible  needs  are  anti- 
cipated and  provided  for  in  this  spiritual 
endowment,  Second,  that  these  forces 
are  under  your  control  if  you  choose  to 
have  them  be  so,  and  that  they  wil1  do 


104  The     Voice    Eternal 

any  thing  you  set  them  doing,  and  that 
they  have  no  right  to  do  anything  else 
than  what  you  put  them  at.  And  if  they 
are  manifesting  sickness,  pain,  or  ill- 
fortune  they  are  acting  without  your 
authority,  and  therefore  as  the  master  of 
the  house  you  must  demand  that  they 
manifest  just  what  you  want  and  nothing- 
else.  The  question  of  who  is  running  the 
house  must  not  be  raised  for  a  moment. 
Assert  this  with  all  the  will  power  you 
can  command— "I  AM  THE  MASTER." 
Then  you  will  have  to  face  two  things 
that  are  of  the  utmost  importance :  First, 
that  there  will  often  be  slow  progress; 
you  will  not  be  able  to  reconstruct  your- 
self in  a  day.  It  often  takes  time  so  that 
you  must  settle  dowrn  to  the  proposition 
that  any  stronghold  that  cannot  be  taken 
by  assault  may  be  taken  by  a  siege,  so  that 
you  must  have  patience  and  let  your  soul 
abide  in  the  peace  of  God  within  you, 
knowing  that  you  cannot  fail.  Second, 
sometimes  you  will  feel  actually  wrorse 
than  better  after  the  first  attempt.  This 
may  be  due  to  the  chemical  changes  that 
take  place  as  a  result  of  the  new  thought 
forces  you  have  set  in  motion.  Or,  it  may 


The  Spiritual  Basis  of  Health    105 

arise  out  of  the  conflicting  thoughts  you 
are  sending  to  your  subconscious  mind. 
For  instance,  you  give  yourself  the  sugges- 
tion that  your  ills  or  troubles  will  be  at  an 
end,  and  the  proposed  results  are  so  great 
from  causes  so  seemingly  inadequate,  be- 
cause you  are  not  acquainted  with  them, 
that  there  arises  a  doubt  in  your  mind 
which  is  stronger  than  your  health  sug- 
gestion, and  as  a  result  you  are  worse  than 
you  were  at  first.  These  two  difficulties 
you  must  be  prepared  to  meet.  They  do 
not  always  arise,  but  often  they  do,  and  it 
is  well  to  provide  against  a  lapse  of  faith, 
on  account  of  a  temporary  failure. 

One  thing  becomes  very  apparent  as 
one  goes  on  practicing  this  divine  science. 
It  is  that  there  is  always  cropping  out 
the  human  element  so  that  we  must  be  for- 
ever using  terms  that  apply  to  human 
activity,  and  yet  there  is  always  the  sense 
of  something  outside  the  range  of  purely 
human  forces  so  that  we  cannot  avoid 
using  the  terms  that  belong  only  to  things 
divine.  There  is  nothing  in  this  life  that 
is  purely  human,  and  for  that  matter 
nothing  that  is  purely  divine.  These  are 
terms  of  accommodation.  No  man  can 


106  The    Voice    Eternal 

tell  where  one  quits  and  the  other  begins. 
They  are  in  fact  one.  However  boundless 
may  seem  the  resources  of  the  subcon- 
scious itself,  it  grows  out  of  the  fact  that 
it  is  merged  into  the  Infinite  spirit  of 
which  it  is  an  individual  expression. 
Therefore  we  say  that  this  power  is  of 
God  the  Infinite  Spirit,  and  that  it  is  es- 
sentially spiritual.  True  we  may  use 
methods  that  seem  very  human,  such  as 
mixing  clay  with  spittle  with  which  to 
anoint  a  blind  man's  eyes,  yet  only  the 
method  is  human.  The  forces  themselves 
are  divine,  and  the  results  are  equally 
divine,  so  that  when  we  are  soothing  a 
wounded  spirit  with  words  of  comfort,  or 
driving  out  some  mental  obsession,  by 
sheer  force  of  personality,  or  quieting  an 
aching  member  of  the  human  frame  by 
manipulation,  or  using  some  material 
remedy  of  proven  potency,  or  employing 
the  surgeon's  knife  to  remove  some  ab- 
normal tissue,  we  are  doing  the  works  of 
God,  and  we  are  God's  men  in  that  par- 
ticular service. 

After  carefully  studying  the  effects- of 
the  various  methods  of  presenting  the 
healing  truth  to  a  patient,  I  have  found 
that  even  though  I  did  not  actually  use 


The  Spiritual  Basis  of  Health    107 

any  outward  form  of  prayer  or  religious 
exercise,  the  very  assumption  on  the  pa- 
tient's part  that  it  was  of  God  and  in  har- 
mony with  the  faith  in  which  he  had  been 
raised  has  been  of  immense  help.  Re- 
ligious faith  is  the  one  peerless  dynamic 
in  this  world.  It  has  built  every  civiliza- 
tion of  history,  and  when  perverted  or 
allowed  to  become  a  stationary,  instead  of 
an  evolutionary  force,  it  has  been  the  de- 
stroyer. The  fact  that  God  wills  your  un- 
dertaking makes  it  irresistible.  I  have 
had  the  greatest  sense  of  authority  over 
disease  and  pain  when  I  have  been  the 
most  conscious  of  in-tune-ness  with  the 
Infinite.  This  grows  not  only  out  of  the 
suggestion  but  out  of  the  fact.  Let  a  man 
take  his  stand  on  the  foundation  fact  of 
his  oneness  with  God ;  then  let  him  become 
passive  and  receptive  to  every  intimation 
of  the  Spirit;  then  let  him  believe  that 
because  he  has  God  dwelling  in  him  there 
is  no  fixed  limit  to  what  he  may  have  or 
do ;  and  then  let  him  with  unshaken  pur- 
pose of  will  determine  to  manifest  the 
power  of  God,  and  health  and  happiness, 
and  peace  and  power  will  be  multiplied  in 
him  through  his  knowledge  of  God. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE  "WORD"  FOR  WELL-BEING. 

NO  BOOK  is  so  rich  in  healing  sug- 
gestion as  the  Bible.  Its  Psychology 
is  always  correct.  Beginning  with  the 
childhood  of  the  race,  it  deals  largely  with 
the  motive  of  fear  because  fear  is  the 
most  elemental  and  powerful  of  emotions 
in  undeveloped  mankind.  Slowly  it 
moves  out  to  other  motives  as  the  rule  of 
action.  Like  all  true  history,  the  Bible 
deals  with  the  facts  in  the  special  realm 
it  undertakes  to  chronicle.  Prom  its  be- 
ginning to  its  close  its  one  theme  is  Life 
with  all  that  pertains  to  it.  Generally 
speaking,  the  Old  Testament  is  the  his- 
tory of  the  childhood  of  the  race,  while 
the  New  Testament  is  the  history  of  the 
race  coming  into  its  maturity.  In  the 
one,  Fear  holds  a  large  place,  while  in 
the  other,  Love  holds  the  place  of  the 
supreme  motive.  The  first  question  of 
the  Old  Testament  is,  "  Where  art  thou«" 
picturing  an  offended  deity  seeking  a 
fearing,  sinful  soul  that  he  may  inflict 
upon  it  a  merited  punishment.  The  first 
question  of  the  New  Testament  is, 


The    ''Word"    for   We  11- Be  ing   109 

" Where  is  he?"  featuring  a  needy  and 
devout  soul  seeking  to  find  the  God  of  love 
that  he  may  worship  him. 

Now  while  these  are  the  character- 
istics of  the  parts  of  the  Bible,  it  is 
true  that  in  that  far  off  age  an  en- 
raptured spirit  caught  glimpses  of  a 
better  day,  and  a  better  way  of  serv- 
ing the  Lord.  The  sweet  singer  of 
Israel  comforted  his  soul  with  that  won- 
derful thought,  that  even  at  the  entrance 
of  the  shadow  of  death,  "I  will  fear  no 
evil,  for  Thou  art  with  me."  For  the 
same  reason  he  would  not  "fear  the  terror 
by  day,  nor  the  arrow  that  flieth  by  night, 
nor  the  pestilence  that  walketh  in  dark- 
ness, nor  the  destruction  that  wasteth  at 
noonday."  Because  he  had  made  the 
most  High  his  habitation  no  evil  should 
befall  him,  neither  any  plague  come  nigh 
his  dwelling !  As  we  enter  the  New  Testa- 
ment teaching,  Fear  of  the  anger  of  God 
is  replaced  with  confidence  in  the  Love  of 
God. 

We  pass  out  of  the  negative  realm  of 
"Thou  shalt  not"  into  the  positive  realm 
of  "Thou  shalt."  The  first  word  of  the 
angel  to  Joseph  was,  "Fear  not,  Joseph." 


110  The    Voice    Eternal 

The  first  word  to  Mary  was,  "Fear  not, 
Mary."  So  often  was  the  word  of  the 
Master  "Fear  not — be  not  afraid — peace 
be  with  you"  that  the  whole  trend  of  the 
gospels  and  after  is  toward  love  as  the 
supreme  motive  of  action.  He  condensed 
the  negative  forms  of  the  law  of  fear  into 
two  great  positive  constructive  sentences, 
so  that  forever  afterward  Love  should  be 
the  fulfilling  of  the  law.  True,  the  Ten 
Commandments  stand  for  something  that 
will  be  essential  to  human  welfare  as  long 
as  the  nature  of  man  continues  in  its  pres- 
ent stage  of  existence  and  development, 
but  when  will  the  Moses  arise  who  shall 
reach  such  heights  of  inspiration  as  to  be 
able  to  put  these  laws  into  constructive 
and  correct  psychological  form,  with  Love 
as  their  motive? 

To  make  the  thought  clearer  the  follow- 
ing is  suggested  as  a  stepping  stone  in  the 
right  direction: 

I.  I  am  the  God  of  Love. 

II.  Worship  me  in  Spirit  and  in  Truth. 

III.  Revere  the  name  of  God. 

IV.  Keep  all  days  holy  and  rest  one 
day  in  seven. 

V.  Honor  thy  parents  and  so  add  years 
to  thy  life. 


The  "  Word  "  for  Weil-Being     111 

VI.  Hold  sacred  the  life  of  God  that  is 
in  man. 

VII.  Let  thy  love  for  all  things  be  with 
a  pure  heart. 

VIII.  Be  honest. 

IX.  Speak  the  truth. 

X.  Desire  earnestly  the  best  things. 
But  we  need  not  wait  for  such  a  form  to 

become  authoritative  with  the  sanction  of 
the  church.  That  will  come  along  in  good 
time.  Meantime  these  words  and  others 
rich  in  devotion  and  ripe  with  ages  of  test- 
ing form  an  arsenal  of  spiritual  weapons 
of  offense  and  defense  against  every  ill 
that  besets  us  in  wrong  thought  forms. 
Some  of  these  are  here  formulated  under 
proper  headings  for  use  in  meditation  and 
affirmation  when  we  have  to  meet  the  evils 
that  may  assail  us  from  the  mental  and 
spiritual  sides  of  our  life. 

For  the  hour  when  Fear  and  worry  are 
our  foes  open  the  treasury  of  God's  word 
as  it  has  been  worked  out  in  human  expe- 
rience and  read : 

I  will  fear  no  evil  for  Thou  art  with  me. 

Fear  not  for  I  am  with  thee,  be  not  dis- 
mayed for  I  am  thy  God.  I  will  strengthen 


112  The    Voice    Eternal 

thee ;  I  will  help  thee ;  yea,  I  will  uphold 
thee  with  the  right  hand  of  my  righteous- 
ness. 

Be  strong  and  of  good  courage ;  be  not 
afraid,  neither  be  thou  dismayed,  for  the 
Lord  thy  God  is  with  thee  whithersoever 
thou  goesL 

That  we  being  delivered  from  the  hand 
of  our  enemies  might  serve  him  without 
fear  all  the  days  of  our  life. 

I  know  whom  I  have  believed  and  am 
persuaded  that  he  is  able  to  keep  that 
which  I  have  committed  to  him  against 
that  day. 

Perfect  love  casteth  out  fear. 

For  the  day  when  we  are  weak. 

In  the  Lord  God  is  everlasting  strength. 

I  can  do  all  things  through  Christ  that 
strengtheneth  me. 

They  that  wait  upon  the  Lord  shall  re- 
new their  strength. 

He  is  able  to  do  exceeding,  abundantly 
above  all  that  we  ask  or  think. 

Be  strong  and  of  good  courage  .  .  . 
the  Lord  thy  God  goeth  with  thee;  He 
will  not  fail  nor  forsake  thee. 


The  "  Word  "  for  Weil-Being     113 

When  poverty  comes  as  an  armed  man. 

My  God  shall  supply  all  your  need  ac- 
cording to  his  riches  in  glory  by  Christ 
Jesus. 

And  hath  blessed  us  with  all  spiritual 
blessings  in  heavenly  places  in  Christ 
Jesus. 

In  my  Father's  house  are  many  man- 
sions. I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  thee. 

Thou  shalt  remember  the  Lord  thy  God ; 
for  it  is  He  that  giveth  thee  power  to  get 
wealth. 

Thou  shalt  not  borrow,  but  thou  shalt 
lend  to  many  nations. 

Diligent  in  business,  fervent  in  spirit, 
serving  the  Lord. 

He  feedeth  the  ravens;  shall  He  not 
much  more  care  for  you  ? 

When  Faith  is  weak. 

Have  the  faith  of  God.    (E.  V.) 

I  had  fainted  unless  I  had  believed  to 
see  the  goodness  of  the  Lord  in  the  land 
of  the  living. 

All  things  are  possible  to  him  that  be- 
lieveth. 

Ye  shall  ask  what  ye  will  and  it  shall  be 
done  unto  you. 


114  The    Voice     Eternal 

Your  Father  knoweth  what  things  ye 
have  need  of  before  you  ask  him. 

Great  is  thy  faith,  be  it  unto  thee  even 
as  thou  wilt. 

When  your  happiness  is  eclipsed. 

A  merry  heart  doeth  good  like  a  medi- 
cine. 

If  ye  know  these  things,  happy  are  ye  if 
ye  do  them. 

Happy  is  he  that  hath  the  God  of  Jacob 
for  his  help. 

All  things  work  together  for  good  to 
them  that  love  God. 

Kejoice  in  the  Lord,  and  again  I  say,  re- 
joice. 

These  things  have  I  spoken  unto  you 
that  your  joy  might  be  full. 

For  wakeful  hours. 

He  giveth  his  beloved  sleep. 

Come  unto  me  all  ye  that  labor  and  are 
heavy  laden  and  I  will  give  you  rest. 

I  will  lay  me  down  in  peace  and  sleep, 
for  Thou  makest  me  to  dwell  in  safety. 

There  remaineth  therefore  a  rest  for  the 
people  of  God;  they  that  believe  do  enter 
into  rest. 


The"  Word  "  for  Weil-Being     115 

His  banner  over  me  was  love. 
Thou  shalt  lie  down  and  thy  sleep  shall 
be  sweet. 

When  your  enemies  trouble  you. 

The  Lord  shall  cause  thine  enemies  that 
rise  up  against  thee  to  be  smitten  before 
thy  face.  They  shall  come  out  against 
thee  one  way,  and  flee  before  thee  seven 
ways. 

Love  }^our  enemies.  Pray  for  them  that 
despitefully  use  you. 

Father  forgive  them,  they  know  not 
what  they  do. 

And  now  shall  mine  head  be  lifted  up 
above  my  enemies  round  about  me. 

If  thine  enemy  hunger  feed  him. 

To  find  Peace. 

Great  peace  have  they  that  love  thy  law 
and  nothing  shall  offend  them. 

Thou  wilt  keep  him  in  perfect  peace 
whose  mind  is  stayed  on  thee  because  he 
trusteth  thee. 

Peace  I  leave  with  you ;  my  peace  I  give 
unto  you. 

The  peace  of  God  that  passeth  all  un- 


116  The     Voice     Eternal 

derstanding  shall  keep  your  hearts  and 
minds  through  Jesus  Christ. 

Peace  on  earth,  good  will  toward  men. 

For  Healing. 

I  am  the  Lord  that  healeth  thee. 

He  healeth  all  thy  diseases. 

The  prayer  of  faith  shall  save  the  sick. 

The  sun  of  righteousness  shall  arise 
with  healing  in  his  wings. 

The  leaves  of  the  tree  are  for  the  heal- 
ing of  the  nations. 

Thy  faith  hath  made  thee  whole. 

I  cried  unto  thee  and  thou  hast  healed 
me. 

He  sent  his  word  and  healed  them. 

For  times  of  great  affliction. 

When  thou  passest  through  the  waters 
I  will  be  with  thee ;  and  through  the  rivers 
they  shall  not  overflow  thee;  when  thou 
walkest  through  the  fire  thou  shalt  not  be 
burned,  neither  shall  the  flame  kindle 
upon  thee. 

Our  present  afflictions  which  are  for  a 
moment  work  out  for  us  an  exceeding 
great  and  eternal  weight  of  joy. 


The  "  Word  "forWell-Being     117 

Weeping  may  endure  for  the  night  but 
joy  cometh  in  the  morning. 

These  are  all  rich  in  comfort  for  they 
are  the  organized  experiences  of  God's 
people.  There  can  be  none  better,  for  a 
suggestion  is  measured  in  its  power  by  the 
conception  the  receiver  has  of  the  author- 
ity and  power  of  the  person  giving  it,  as 
well  as  by  the  greatness  of  the  truth  it 
holds.  Let  the  mind  dwell  Upon  theso 
words  that  the  eternal  God  has  spoken  to 
and  through  his  people,  and  soon  there  is 
a  mighty  uplift  of  mind  and  body  to  him 
who  receives  them.  To  be  sure  there  are 
many  modern  forms  of  suggestion  that 
are  short  and  in  the  language  of  the  day, 
but  these  from  the  treasury  of  mankind 
are  rich  with  ages  of  trial  and  proof.  And 
when  they  are  interpreted  in  the  light  of 
the  modern  conception  of  the  oneness  of 
God  with  humanity  there  is  an  intimacy 
of  contact  and  an  efficacy  of  action  that 
cannot  fail. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  LAW  OF  SUGGESTION. 

1AM  often  asked,  "Is  there  any  book 
that  gives  the  form  of  suggestions  to  be 
used  in  specific  cases'?"  In  the  nature  of 
the  case  one  can  hardly  do  more  than  to 
give  the  general  principles  of  suggestion 
with  a  few  illustrations  of  their  use,  for 
the  reason  that  no  two  cases  are  just  alike, 
any  more  than  any  two  people  are  just 
alike.  A  book  of  forms  of  suggestion  to 
cover  all  the  cases  that  arise  in  my  prac- 
tice would  make  a  volume  something  like 
the  old  fashioned  family  doctor  books  that 
are  used  mostly  to  hold  open  the  front 
doors  of  farm  houses  through  the  rural 
regions.  But  to  help  those  who  would 
know  and  use  the  power  of  suggestion  for 
their  own  and  others'  good  I  will  give  an 
outline  of  first  principles  with  illustra- 
tions, and  if  you  will  intelligently  and 
persistently  follow  them  you  will  get  re- 
sults in  any  case  amenable  to  suggestion. 
The  inind  is  Conscious  and  Sub-con- 
scious. The  conscious  has  to  do  with  that 
realm  of  sensation  and  thought  of  which 
we  take  cognizance.  The  sub-conscious  has 


The    Law    of    Suggestion         119 

to  do  with  those  sensations,  thoughts,  and 
activities  of  which  we  are  unconscious. 
The  conscious  side  of  the  mind  is  the  mas- 
ter of  the  house  of  the  Lord,  usually  called 
the  body.  It  is  the  architect  of  life  and 
destiny.  It  creates  the  ideals  for  body, 
mind  and  character.  It  is  equipped  with 
every  method  of  reasoning  so  that  it  may 
determine  what  is  good  or  bad,  right  or 
wrong,  in  a  world  where  these  are  so  en- 
tangled as  to  set  the  wisest  by  the  ears. 
It  can  reason  by  induction,  i.e., it  can  take 
a  large  number  of  separate  facts  and  draw 
from  them  a  general  principle  or  law.  It 
can  reason  by  deduction,  i.  e.,  it  can  take 
a  given  fact  and  draw  from  it  every  logi- 
cal sequence.  It  can  reason  by  compari- 
son, i.  e.,  it  can  take  a  proposed  fact  and 
compare  it  with  a  known  fact  and  deter- 
mine its  probable  truth  or  value.  It  can 
reason  by  analysis,  i.  e.,  it  can  separate  a 
proposition  into  its  elements  and  deter- 
mine their  relative  value.  It  can  reason 
by  synthesis,  i.  e.,  it  can  take  a  large  num- 
ber of  related  facts  and  bind  them  into 
a  consistent  W7hole.  It  is  therefore  pe- 
culiarly fitted  for  such  a  world  as  that  in 
which  we  live,  but  it  would  have  no  place 


120  The     Voice    Eternal 

in  a  world  where  only  truth  and  right 
existed. 

The  sub-conscious  is  the  servant  in  the 
house.  It  can  reason  only  by  deduction. 
It  cannot  compare  any  suggested  fact  with 
a  known  one  for  the  reason  that  it  can  hold 
but  one  idea  at  a  time.  It  cannot  therefore 
tell  whether  a  thing  is  good  or  bad,  true  or 
false.  Its  deductions  from  any  suggested 
fact  are  perfectly  logical  but  if  there  is 
a  fa]se  premise  involved  it  has  no  means 
of  detecting  the  fallacy.  It  is  essentially 
the  builder  of  the  body.  It  cannot  origi- 
nate anything.  It  can  only  carry  out 
hereditary  tendencies,  traditional  ideas, 
or  things  suggested  by  the  conscious  mind. 
It  is  as  tenacious  in  holding  to  a  good  idea 
or  habit  as  it  is  in  holding  a  bad  one.  It 
will  work  out  any  idea  held  over  it  by  the 
conscious  mind.  If  that  idea  is  repeated 
often  enough  it  will  work  it  out  automatic- 
ally, without  any  conscious  thought  tak- 
ing place.  It  is  the  seat  and  creature  of 
habit. 

All  habits  are  subconscious.  And  they 
are  produced  by  the  repetition  of  a  thought 
in  the  conscious  thinking.  And  the  of  tener 
the  thought  is  repeated  the  more  rapidly 


The    Law    of    Suggestion        121 

will  the  habit  be  formed.  For  instance 
if  a  man  smokes  one  cigar  a  month  he  will 
not  get  the  habit  very  quickly.  If  he  takes 
one  per  week  he  will  get  it  four  times  as 
fast.  If  he  takes  one  per  day  he  will  get 
the  habit  thirty  times  as  fast.  Any  idea 
whether  good  or  bad  becomes  a  habit  of 
the  subconscious  on  the  same  principle. 
Set  times  for  "  going  into  the  silence "  to 
think  of  the  things  we  want  to  materialize 
in  our  lives  is  a  good  practice.  The  of  tener 
it  is  done,  the  quicker  are  the  results  ob- 
tained. We  affirm  over  and  over  the 
things  we  want,  or  just  steadily  hold  them 
in  thought  and  the  subconscious  takes  the 
thought  and  begins  to  work  it  out  into  ex- 
perience. To  get  results  quickly  we  must 
set  the  will  to  holding  the  conscious  mind 
upon  the  thing  we  want  to  be,  and  keep 
it  off.  the  thing  we  do  not  want.  One  must 
begin  by  thinking  of  the  thing  as  some- 
thing to  be  desired,  then  as  something  he 
believes  he  may  have,  and  then  as  some- 
thing he  is  determined  to  have.  Then  he 
must  think  the  thing  about  himself,  and 
keep  it  up  until  the  idea  has  become  a  fixed 
habit  of  the  subconscious,  and  then  the 
thought  and  himself  have  become  one,  for 


122  The     Voice     Eternal 

a  man  becomes  what  he  persistently 
thinks  about.  "As  a  man  thinketh  in  his 
heart  so  is  he."  Health,  strength,  happi- 
ness, success,  prosperity,  in  fact  anything 
can  be  secured  by  following  this  method. 
In  thinking  to  form  health  habits, 
success  habits,  or  any  other  sort,  re- 
member to  use  only  the  positive, 
constructive  thought  forms,  and  re- 
fuse to  allow  their  opposites  any  place 
in  the  conscious  thinking.  You  can,  for 
instance,  say  to  yourself  a  score  of  times, 
"I  will  not  have  the  headache,"  and  when 
you  have  gotten  through  with  your  sug- 
gesting the  strongest  idea  you  have  given 
your  mind  is  that  contained  in  the  word 
headache,  and  in  due  time  it  will  arrive 
as  usual.  But  if  you  say,  "I  shall  spend 
the  day  in  perfect  comfort ;  my  head  shall 
be  filled  with  sensations  of  ease,  etc.,  you 
will  find  that  these  ideas  persistently 
thought  will  impress  on  the  subconscious 
the  idea  of  ease  and  comfort,  and  it  will 
proceed  to  work  them  out.  Pain  will  go 
only  when  the  subconscious  is  filled  with 
the  idea  of  ease.  Poverty  will  go  only 
when  it  is  displaced  in  the  thought  habits 
with  the  idea  of  prosperity  or  plenty.  Our 


The     Law     of     Suggestion        123 

bad  luck  will  end  when  we  begin  to  think 
of  our  good  luck.  Failure  gives  way  to 
the  persistent  thought  of  success.  Fear 
gives  place  to  love.  Despondency  is 
routed  by  hope.  Doubt  yields  to  faith. 
Weakness  must  go  before  the  thought  of 
strength.  Self  loses  its  sense  of  isolation 
by  identifying  itself  with  God.  Every 
form  of  obsession  goes  out  into  the  deep 
by  the  full  realization  of  the  idea  of  self- 
mastery. 

The  designation  of  the  functions  of  the 
conscious  and  subconscious  is  not  an  ar- 
bitrary arrangement  but  is  based  upon 
known  facts  of  Physiology  and  Psychol- 
ogy. The  body  is  made  up  of  bones,  mus- 
cles, nerves,  and  blood  vessels,  and  various 
fluids.  The  tissues  of  the  body  are  com- 
posed of  cells,  estimated  at  1,700  trillions. 

The  muscles  are  divided  into  two  classes 
known  as  voluntary  and  involuntary. 
The  nervous  organism  is  divided  into  the 
Cerebro-spinal  and  Sympathetic  systems. 
The  voluntary  muscles  are  furnished  their 
nerve  equipment  from  the  cerebro-spinal 
S3^stem,  consisting  of  the  brain  and  spinal 
cord.  Presiding  over  this  is  the  conscious 
mind  with  its  seat  of  authority  in  the 


124  The     Voice    Eternal 

brain,  so  that  we  move  the  body,  arms, 
limbs,  and  other  voluntary  parts  of  the 
body  by  the  action  of  the  conscious  mind. 
The  involuntary  muscles  such  as  the 
heart,  stomach,  liver,  kidneys,  and  the  or- 
gans of  the  pelvic  region,  are  largely 
equipped  with  nerves  from  the  sympa- 
thetic system  whose  center  is  the  Solar 
plexus,  sometimes  called  the  "  Abdominal 
brain/7  which  is  the  seat  of  authority  of 
the  subconscious  mind.  Under  its  direc- 
tion the  heart  keeps  beating,  the  blood 
keeps  moving,  the  stomach  digests  food, 
the  liver  and  other  organs  do  their  work 
whether  we  sleep  or  wake.  Incidentally, 
the  subconscious  carries  on  the  work  of 
repairing  and  creating  the  1,700  trillion 
cells  of  the  body,  each  one  equipped  with 
a  sensory  and  a  motor  nerve,  a  capillary 
from  the  veins  and  arteries,  and  a  branch 
of  the  lymphatic  system.  Through  these 
various  channels  the  subconscious  is  busy 
every  moment  running  supply  trains  to 
the  cells  and  running  funeral  trains  away 
from  them.  Its  place  as  the  builder  of 
the  body  is  therefore  undisputed.  For 
while  these  two  nervous  systems  are  inti- 
mately connected  and  related,  their  nor- 


The     Law     of     Suggestion        125 

mal  functions  are  practically  independent 
so  that  all  the  functions  of  the  internal 
organs  are  carried  on  without  our  giving 
them  a  conscious  thought.  In  fact,  a  nor- 
mally healthy  man  never  has  occasion  to 
think  of  his  stomach  or  heart  or  other 
organs  at  all.  The  less  he  does  so,  the 
better.  It  is  a  notorious  fact  that  the 
most  depressing  exercise  one  can  take  is 
to  listen  to  the  detailed  account  of  the 
aches  and  pains  and  ills  of  people  who 
delight  to  dwell  upon  their  troubles.  If 
there  is  an  exception  to  this  it  is  the  case 
of  those  who  persist  in  talking  about 
themselves  or  thinking  to  themselves  of 
their  dreadful  experiences,  and  fears  and 
apprehensions,  which  are  always  magni- 
fied if  not  wholly  imaginary.  Usually 
there  is  no  malice  in  the  process  for  they 
are  ignorant  of  the  forces  whose  laws 
they  are  unconsciously  setting  into  action, 
but  the  result  is  none  the  less  deadly. 
Such  people  ought  to  be  suppressed  or 
otherwise  shut  up  until  they  are  treated 
and  mentally  re-educated  to  avoid  play- 
ing with  deadly  agencies.  This,  may 
sound  harsh  but  it  is  judicious,  for  the 
reason  that  when  the  conscious  mind 


126  The     Voice     Eternal 

dwells  upon  such  things  the  thought  is 
at  once  handed  down  to  the  subconscious, 
which  immediately  telegraphs  the  abnor- 
mal thought  form  out  through  the  sym- 
pathetic nervous  system  to  every  involun- 
tary muscle  and  organ  of  the  body,  and 
begins  to  work  out  an  imitation  of  the 
idea  received  by,  or  originated  in  the  con- 
scious mind.  The  effect  may  be  only  a 
brief  " depression  of  spirits,"  but  if  re- 
peated it  becomes  a  habit  that  deranges 
the  action  of  one  or  more  organs  of  the 
body.  The  integrity  of  the  tissue  of  the 
organ  may  not  be  affected  but  its  action 
may  be  very  seriously  impaired,  in  fact 
so  much  so  that  it  is  sometimes  difficult 
to  tell  it  from  an  organic  disease  in  which 
the  integrity  of  the  tissues  of  the  organ 
is  affected. 

In  this  way  such  thoughts  as  fear, 
worry,  grief,  trouble,  traditional  notions 
about  hereditary  influences,  get  in  their 
deadly  work,  derange  the  functions  of  the 
body,  and  work  havoc  to  our  health,  hap- 
piness, and  usefulness.  The  cure  is 
brought  about  by  instructing  the  patient 
in  the  laws  of  his  own  mind.  Showing 
him  just  how  he  has  been  unconsciously 


The     Law     of    Suggestion        127 

wrecking  Ms  own  health  and  then  carry 
it  over  into  the  realm  of  ethics,  and  show- 
ing him  that  to  know  what  is  good  and 
fail  to  do  it  is  to  be  an  intentional  sinner. 
For  what  he  knows  he  may  do  he  must 
do  or  be  a  sinner,  if  not  theologically,  at 
least  physiologically.  He  must  fill  the 
conscious  mind  with  the  truth  in  thought- 
images  of  health,  happiness  and  useful- 
ness. A  cheerful  philosophy  such  as  is 
set  forth  in  this  book  will  banish  doubts, 
fears,  the  "blues,"  and  all  such  like  and 
speedily  relieve  the  body  of  its  ills. 

Let  it  be  further  remembered,  as  set 
forth  in  Chapter  I,  that  every  good  in 
God's  world  is  attained  by  obedience  to 
the  laws  by  which  that  good  finds  expres- 
sion. A  man  may  sit  cross-legged  and 
look  down  his  nose  between  his  feet  and 
think,  "I  am  prosperity,"  until  Gabriel 
sounds  his  traditional  trumpet,  but  unless 
he  obeys  the  law  by  which  prosperity  finds 
expression,  by  being  "diligent  in  business, 
fervent  in  spirit,  serving  the  Lord,"  he 
will  probably  scratch  a  poor  man's  back 
all  his  life. 

In  like  manner  a  man  may  say,  "I  am 
health,"  and  go  on  sleeping  in  an  unven- 


128  The     Voice     Eternal 

tilated  room,  neglect  to  take  proper  exer- 
cise, or  feed  his  body  on  an  unbalanced 
diet,  and  in  general  fail  to  observe  dietetic, 
hygienic,  or  other  laws  of  health,  and 
wonder  why  his  "thought"  doesn't  create 
a  perfectly  healthy  body.  "Faith  with- 
out works  is  dead,"  said  St.  James,  a 
noted  healer  of  the  early  church.  Health 
without  observing  its  laws  is  impossible. 
If  one  does  not  know  the  laws  then  he 
needs  to  consult  a  physician,  or  some  one 
trained  in  such  knowledge,  and  get  a  start 
in  the  truly  great  and  often  heroic 
achievement  of  knowing  himself.  For  be 
it  remembered  that  no  one  man's  scheme 
of  diet  or  living  can  fit  every  body.  There 
are  physiological  reasons  for  the  saying 
that  "what  is  one  man's  meat  is  another's 
poison."  The  whole  matter  of  applying 
the  laws  of  living  is  a  personal  affair,  a 
thing  to  be  worked  out  by  the  individual 
for  himself. 

So  also  a  man  may  say,  "I  am  a  Chris- 
tian," and  fill  his  mind  with  such  notions 
as  that  there  is  one  holy  day  and  six  pro- 
fane ones  in  a  week ;  that  some  duties  are 
sacred  while  the  rest  are  secular;  that 
God  is  pleased  with  poverty,  or  sickness, 


The     Law     of    Suggestion        129 

or  any  thing  short  of  "  wholeness" — a 
whole  man  the  whole  time;  that  he  may 
depend  upon  some  one  else  doing  what  he 
can  do  for  himself,  will  never  come  to  the 
heights  of  self-mastery,  and  will  get  little 
of  the  joy  and  peace  and  power  that  is 
the  right  of  a  real  Christian.  Jesus  found 
in  his  day  that  the  greatest  drawback  to 
spiritual  progress  was  that  the  people 
believed  and  knew  so  many  things  that 
were  not  true.  Therefore  he  said,  "Ye 
shall  know  the  truth  and  the  truth  shall 
make  you  free."  And  this  chapter  sets 
forth  why  the  truth  in  any  realm  of  life 
cannot  fail  to  produce  the  desired  results. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  MATERIAL  ACCESSORIES  TO  HEALTH. 

NO  SCHEME  of  the  spiritual  philoso- 
phy of  health  can  be  complete  which 
leaves  out  a  due  consideration  of  the  ma- 
terial means  that  make  for  the  welfare  of 
the  physical  body  which  is  the  temple  for 
the  life  of  God  that  for  a  time  dwells 
here.  The  body  is  a  fact  on  hands  and  no 
amount  of  mental  jugglery  can  alter  that 
fact.  Its  welfare  is  tremendously  in- 
fluenced by  the  materials  that  we  take  into 
it.  It  is  the  life  of  God  expressed  in  ma- 
terial form  just  as  the  soul  is  the  life  of 
God  expressed  in  immaterial  form.  The 
life  of  God  is  governed  by  certain  laws  of 
expression  which  vary  according  to  the 
form  of  life.  If  the  Infinite  life  is  ex- 
pressed in  spiritual  form  then  it  flows  into 
that  form  by  direct  spiritual  contact  of 
the  individual  life  with  the  spirit  of  all 
life.  If  life  is  expressed  in  material  form 
then  it  is  constantly  maintained  by  life 
imparted  through  material  forms,  as  the 
living  soil  imparts  its  life  to  vegetation, 
and  vegetation  to  the  animal,  and  like- 
wise both  of  these  to  man's  bodv.  In 


Material    Accessories    to     Health         131 

other  words  the  human  body  receives  liv- 
ing energy  from  various  material  forms 
such  as  food,  water,  air,  etc.,  while  his 
spiritual  body  receives  its  energy  direct 
from  God,  and  even  here  the  process  is 
greatly  helped  by  certain  symbols  and  ma- 
terial forms.  No  sane  man  expects  his 
body  to  be  fed  by  purely  spiritual  means 
without  the  agency  of  material  forms. 
And  there  are  certain  laws  by  which 
these  material  agencies  are  made  to  min- 
ister their  energy  to  the  body  most  effi- 
ciently. To  know  these  laws  is  the  first 
duty  of  man.  No  reference  is  made  here 
to  materia  medica  because  its  use  is  as- 
sumed, and  the  physician  is  regarded  as 
God's  man  dealing  in  divine  forces  which 
many  people  need  at  times  to  use.  The 
author  is  not  a  physician  and  is  writing 
for  the  people  who  do  not  need  material 
remedies,  and  whose  attention  needs  to  be 
turned  rather  to  the  mental  and  spiritual 
forces  in  and  about  them. 

The  body  is  made  up  of  bones,  muscles, 
nerves,  tissues,  and  fluids.  It  seems  to  be 
adjusted  to  the  one  supreme  purpose  of 
furnishing  a  dwelling  place  for  an  unseen 
being  that  touches  and  fills  every  part  of 


132  The     Voice     Eternal 

it  and  governs  its  every  action  from  one 
ultimate  center — the  brain.  Just  how  this 
connection  is  maintained  between  matter 
on  the  one  hand  and  spirit  on  the  other 
so  that  the  vibrations  of  unconscious  mat- 
ter become  mental  images  in  the  conscious 
mind  is  largely  speculative.  We  can  tell 
all  the  steps  taken  by  vibrations  passing 
into  the  ear  to  the  innermost  chamber 
where  it  reaches  the  filaments  of  the  audi- 
tory nerve  and  thence  is  carried  to  the 
brain  where  it  reports  as  music,  or  words, 
or  noise.  That  is  probably  as  far  as  the 
reader  cares  to  go  with  it.  So  with  the 
question  of  extracting  from  food  the  en- 
ergy needed  to  keep  up  the  body,  we  may 
trace  all  the  steps  and  know  the  laws  of 
nutrition,  and  still  not  be  able  to  tell  just 
how  the  same  kind  of  food  will  give  one 
form  of  energy  to  the  blacksmith's  arm, 
another  to  the  fine  texture  of  the  poet's 
brain,  and  in  still  another  case  a  subtle 
form  of  energy  called  personal  magnet- 
ism. But  we  may  know  the  building  pro- 
cesses of  the  body,  and  the  values  of  the 
various  material  agents  and  the  methods 
of  their  use. 

One  important  fact  is  that  the  body  is 


Material     Accessories     to     Health         133 

forever  changing.  In  this  change  two  op- 
posing processes  are  at  work.  One  is  the 
constructive  process  whereby  the  body  is 
built  up ;  the  other  is  the  destructive  pro- 
cess whereby  it  is  torn  down.  From  the 
cradle  to  the  grave  this  builder  and  de- 
stroyer are  contending  for  the  mastery. 
In  childhood  and  youth  the  builder  has  the 
advantage;  in  manhood  he  maintains  the 
supremacy;  as  we  advance  in  years  the 
destroyer  slowly  but  surely  gains  the  lead 
until  the  builder  can  no  longer  keep  the 
body  in  repair  as  a  fit  instrument  for  the 
spirit  of  life  and  we  move  out  to  life  on 
other  planes  of  existence.  In  this  process 
of  building  the  matter  of  materials  in  the 
form  of  nutrition  is  the  chief  problem. 

There  is  a  theory  of  medicine  whose 
main  hypothesis  is  that  inasmuch  as  the 
body  is  composed  of  some  twelve  or  more 
chemical  salts  maintained  in  proper  pro- 
portion, its  ills  are  caused  by  a  dis- 
turbance of  that  proportion,  and  that 
by  administering  the  needed  salt,  health 
would  result  with  the  restored  bal- 
ance. For  this  purpose  certain  "  tis- 
sue remedies"  were  prepared  to  carry 
out  the  theory.  It  needs  only  to  be 


134  The    Voice     Eternal 

said  that  people  continued  to  sicken  and 
die  at  about  the  same  rate  as  before.  So 
also  since  that  traditionary  time  when 
men  deemed  that  they  might  "eat  of  the 
tree  of  life  and  live  forever"  men  have 
dreamed  of  some  sort  of  ideal  food  regime 
by  which  the  body  might  be  kept  in  per- 
manent repair.  But  the  dream  has  not 
been  realized,  and  the  most  fearful  spec- 
ter that  ever  haunted  the  imagination  of 
mankind  was  that  of  being  compelled  to 
live  on  century  after  century  in  this  fail- 
ing human  body.  Whether  the  bound  is 
set  by  the  thought  of  humanity  or  by  the 
will  of  the  Infinite,  we  know  that  by  some 
law  it  is  appointed  unto  man  to  eventually 
move  out  of  this  temple  of  the  body.  Until 
that  time  we  are  concerned  with  the  ques- 
tion of  materials  for  the  building  and  re- 
pairing of  its  ever  changing  cells.  Nutri- 
tion is  the  supreme  problem,  and  in  this 
there  is  involved,  First,  the  question  of 
materials,  and  Second,  the  means  of  trans- 
porting them  to  the  1700  trillion  cells  of 
the  body.  For  the  cell  is  the  unit.  Its 
welfare  means  the  welfare  of  the  whole 
body. 

In  the  matter  of  materials  there  are  five 


Material     Accessories    to     Health        135 

great  classes  of  food  elements  which  are 
as  follows : 

I.  PROTEIDS.  They  contain  among  other 
constituents,  Nitrogen,  and  are  the  flesh 
formers,  the  tissue  builders  of  the  body. 
The  foods  richest  in  proteids  are  milk, 
cheese,  meat,  eggs,  all  kinds  of  fish,  wheat, 
beans,  and  oatmeal.     These  proteids  be- 
come peptones  during  the  process  of  diges- 
tion and  are  readily  absorbed  and  are  car- 
ried at  once  to  feed  the  tissues.     About 
twenty-one  per  cent  of  the  food  supply 
should  be  proteids. 

II.  FATS.     They  are  found  in  animal 
fats,  vegetable  oils,  milk,  butter,  lard,  etc. 
Fatty  matters  are  very  abundant  in  olives, 
sweet  almonds  and  other  nuts,  chocolate, 
castor    oil   beans,   hemp    and   flax   seed. 
About  ten  per  cent  of  the  food  supply 
should  be  fats. 

III.  CARBO-HYDRATES.  These  are  prin- 
cipally sugars  and  starches.    All  starches 
are  changed  into  sugars  before  they  are 
digested,  so  that  mention  is  made  only  of 
the  principal  starchy  food  supplies.  Starch 
is   found   in   wheat,   corn,   oats,   and  all 
grains ;  in  potatoes,  peas,  beans,  the  roots 
and  stems  of  many  plants,  and  in  some 


136  The    Voice    Eternal 

fruits.  Corn  starch  furnishes  carbo-hy- 
drates in  almost  pure  state.  These  are 
classed  with  fats  as  " non-nitrogenous" 
and  they  are  the  fuel  furnishers  for  main- 
taining animal  heat.  About  sixty-nine  per 
cent  of  the  food  supply  should  be  carbo- 
hydrates. 

IV.  WATER.    Next  to  air  it  is  the  most 
important  in  preserving  the  life  of  the 
body.  Seventy  per  cent  of  the  body  weight 
is  water,  and  in  order  to  maintain  that 
proportion,  and  to  furnish  liquids  for  di- 
gestive and  other  purposes  it  is  necessary 
to  give  the  body  from  three  and  a  half  to 
four  pints  of  liquids  daily.    It  enters  into 
the  chemical  composition  of  the  tissues, 
rendering  them  pliable.    It  acts  as  a  solv- 
ent in  various  ingredients  of  food  and  ren- 
ders them  capable  of  absorption.    It  is  the 
chief  ingredient  in  all  body  fluids  such  as 
blood  and  lymph.     Too  great  emphasis 
cannot  be  laid  on  the  purity  of  the  water 
we  drink. 

V.  MINERALS.    These  are  various  salts 
of  which  Sodium-chloride  (common  table 
salt)  and  phosphate  of  lime  are  the  most 
important.    Common  salt  is  present  in  all 
the  body  fluids,  especially  the  blood.    It  is 


Material     Accessories     to     Health        137 

contained  in  nearly  everything  we  eat,  but 
not  in  sufficient  quantities  to  supply  all 
the  needs  of  the  body,  so  it  is  added  as  a 
separate  article  of  diet.  Of  all  the  min- 
eral salts,  phosphate  of  lime  is  found  in 
the  largest  quantity  in  the  body.  It  enters 
into  the  composition  of  the  bones,  teeth, 
and  cartileges,  and  gives  firmness  to  the 
tissues.  Milk  gives  a  large  amount  of 
phosphate  of  lime  and  is  especially  pro- 
vided for  infants  and  all  growing  animal 
life.  For  the  same  reason  there  would 
seem  to  be  a  limit  to  its  use  among  those 
advancing  in  age.  The  use  of  these  vari- 
ous salts  is  to  regulate  the  specific  gravity 
of  blood  and  other  body  fluids;  to  pre- 
serve the  chemical  reaction  of  blood  and 
excretions  and  secretions ;  to  preserve  tis- 
sues from  disorganization  and  putrefac- 
tion ;  to  control  the  rate  of  absorption ;  to 
enter  into  the  composition  of  bones  and 
teeth ;  to  aid  the  blood  to  hold  certain  sub- 
stances in  solution.  It  stimulates  the  ap- 
petite when  taken  in  food  and  benefits  gas- 
tric secretion. 

The  quantity  and  kind  of  food  required 
depends  somewhat  on  the  individual,  the 
nature  and  amount  of  his  work,  and  the 


138  The     Voice    Eternal 

climatic  conditions  under  which  he  lives. 
Bread,  milk,  and  water,  with  a  certain 
amount  of  meat  and  fat,  form  the  basis  of 
all  diets  in  the  temperate  zone,  for  they 
are  the  best  sustainers  of  life.  But  as  a 
mixed  diet  is  manifestly  best,  other  food 
materials  are  to  be  included.  In  order 
that  all  the  tissues  and  fluids  of  the  body 
may  remain  in  good  condition  it  is  neces- 
sary that  they  receive  in  proper  propor- 
tion all  the  ingredients  necessary  for  their 
well  being,  in  the  form  most  agreeable  to 
the  individual  and  of  the  kind  requiring  a 
minimum  of  work  in  digesting  it. 

Any  scheme  of  diet  that  proposes  to 
make  one  definite  list  of  food  supplies  to 
suit  everybody  is  to  say  the  least  falla- 
cious. Certain  general  principles,  how- 
ever, may  be  safely  followed.  Hard 
labor  calls  for  increasing  amounts  of 
all  articles  of  food  to  make  up  for  the  in- 
creased wear  and  tear  of  such  occupation. 
Fattening  diet  must  increase  the  Carbo- 
hydrates. Reducing  diet  must  lessen  fats 
and  carbo-hydrates  and  increase  proteids. 
Brain  ivor~k  calls  for  easily  digested  foods. 
This  simple  outline  is  given  in  the  hope 
that  the  reader  will  ask  his  physician  for 


Material    Accessories    to     Health        139 

a  good  book  on  dietetics  and  read  and 
practice  it. 

Of  almost  equal  importance  with  the 
question  what  shall  we  eat  is  the  other  one, 
how  shall  we  eat?  A  characteristic  sign 
of  the  times  is,  Gone  to  lunch — Back  in 
ten  minutes.  Many  a  man  digs  his  grave 
with  his  teeth,  and  many  another  digs  it 
even  more  rapidly  by  failing  to  use  his 
teeth.  Digestion  is  both  a  chemical  and 
a  mechanical  process.  Mastication,  the 
churning  effect  of  the  stomach,  the  peris- 
taltic and  vermicular  actions  have  to  be 
thorough  and  vigorous.  The  first  of  these 
is  dependent  on  the  voluntary  muscles.  It 
will  not  do  itself  as  the  others  will.  And 
it  must  be  done  thoroughly.  Every  mouth- 
ful should  be  reduced  to  a  semi-liquid — 
Metcherized  if  you  please,  before  swallow- 
ing. This  not  only  prepares  the  food  for 
the  later  mechanical  actions,  but  also 
mixes  the  saliva  with  it,  and  thus  prepares 
it  for  the  action  of  the  gastric  juice,  and 
the  pancreatic  juices,  the  bile  and  intes- 
tinal ferments.  Not  only  does  the  process 
of  digestion  depend  upon  the  thorough- 
ness of  the  mastication  but  also  the  still 
more  important  process  of  assimilation. 


140  The    Voice     Eternal 

What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  lie  shall  have 
all  needed  variety  of  food  if  it  shall  come 
to  the  digestive  tract  in  such  condition 
that  the  assimilative  agencies  shall  be  un- 
able to  extract  the  substance  from  it? 
And  one  has  but  to  study  a  chart  of  the 
intestinal  tract  to  see  that  the  millions  of 
little  mouths  pumping  away  for  nutrition 
as  the  food  materials  pass  by  demand  that 
it  shall  be  in  as  nearly  a  liquid  state  as 
possible. 

We  come  now  to  the  question  of  trans- 
portation of  the  food  materials  to  every 
cell  of  the  body,  and  this  is  provided  for 
by  the  circulation  of  the  blood.  It  also 
carries  Oxygen  from  the  lungs  to  all  the 
cells,  and  carries  away  carbon-dioxide, 
salts  and  acids  to  the  various  organs  of 
elimination.  The  breathing  has  much  to 
do  with  the  effectiveness  of  this  function 
of  the  circulation.  It  is  surprising  how 
many  people  live  through  life  without  find- 
ing out  how  to  breathe  properly.  So  im- 
portant is  proper  breathing  that  whole 
systems  of  natural  healing  make  it  their 
chief  stock  in  trade.  If  you  would  get  an 
idea  of  the  " divine  breath"  and  how  much 
it  contributes  to  well-being  just  take  and 


Material    Accessories    to     Health        141 

practice  the  following  exercise:  Place 
your  hand  on  the  abdomen  just  above  the 
navel  and  inhale,  pushing  the  hand  out- 
ward, then  as  you  exhale  let  the  hand  press 
inward.  Practice  this  until  you  can  do 
it  well.  Now  place  the  hands  astride  the 
hips,  thumbs  behind,  and  after  having  in- 
haled as  much  as  possible  in  the  foregoing 
manner,  bring  into  play  the  inter-costal  or 
rib  muscles,  taking  more  breath  with  them 
and  pushing  the  hands  outward.  Now 
with  the  muscles  of  the  upper  chest,  which 
have  so  far  been  still,  lift  the  chest  while 
you  inhale  the  last  possible  particle  of  air, 
and  then  exhale  by  reversing  the  process 
and  you  will  have  discovered  nature's 
great  blood  purifier.  Deep  breathing  in 
the  open  air,  on  sleeping  porches,  or  with 
open  windows  is  one  of  the  first  aids  to  re- 
covering vigor  for  the  worn  out  body. 

The  circulation  of  the  blood  and  deep 
breathing  are  also  related  to  exercise. 
Hardly  one  of  the  common  ills  from  the 
discomfort  of  cold  extremities  to  the  more 
serious  complaints  of  a  torpid  liver,  indi- 
gestion, constipation,  and  what  not,  arise 
from  poor  circulation  due  largely  to  the 
lack  of  proper  exercise.  When  Nebuchad- 


142  The     Voice     Eternal 

nezzar — a  man  given  to  having  bad  dreams 
—developed  a  clear  case  of  liver  trouble 
so  that  none  of  his  court  or  friends  could 
live  with  him,  Daniel  sent  him  out  to  walk 
on  all  fours  and  live  on  a  vegetable  diet 
until  he  came  back  to  his  right  mind.  The 
" Nebuchadnezzar  walk"  once  or  twice 
around  the  room  on  arising  and  retiring 
will  work  wonders  in  many  forms  of  vis- 
ceral inaction.  Aside  from  many  systems 
of  physical  culture  most  all  of  which  are 
beneficial,  a  thorough  manipulation  by  a 
good  mechano-therapist  will  work  wonders 
in  a  worn  out  and  nervously  depleted  or- 
ganism, and  if  repeated  will  keep  the  arte- 
ries young  and  the  body  in  vigorous  health. 
The  care  of  the  skin  is  an  individual 
study.  I  remember  to  have  read  of  an 
early  saint  of  the  church  of  whom  it  was 
said  that,  "he  never  trimmed  his  hair  or 
beard,  never  ate  meat,  never  drank  wine, 
and  never  took  a  bath. ' '  He  probably  died 
of  some  kidney  or  lung  trouble.  Today 
one  authority  advocates  the  cold  bath  for 
every  sort  of  ill.  Another  calls  for  hot 
baths,  mineral  baths,  electric  light  baths, 
or  some  other  variety.  There  are  people 
who  can  violate  all  the  rules  of  sanity  as 


Material     Accessories     to     Health        143 

well  as  sanitation  and  seem  to  suffer  little 
immediate  bad  results.  But  the  number  is 
not  large  enough  to  be  encouraging.  Let 
every  man  be  fully  persuaded  in  his  own 
mind  just  what  is  best  for  himself  in  the 
matter  of  caring  for  his  skin. 

Doubtless  there  are  many  other  points 
worthy  of  mention  in  the  proper  care  of 
the  body  that  if  dwrelt  upon  here  would 
swell  this  chapter  into  the  dimensions  of  a 
volume.  Even  this  brief  resume  of  the 
essentials  might  be  taken  to  indicate  that 
it  is  a  lot  of  trouble  to  one's  self  to  keep 
the  body  in  health.  But  most  of  the  care 
of  the  physical  health  is  done  automatic- 
ally as  a  matter  of  habit,  so  that  if  we  learn 
the  right  way  it  is  at  least  as  easy  as  the 
wrong  way,  and  we  shall  keep  the  temple 
clean  and  in  perfect  health,  and  be  spared 
the  distress  of  having  to  call  in  the  doctor 
to  cleanse  it  with  a  scourge  of  cords.v 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

A  NEW  GENERATION 

THE  primal  impulse  of  the  In- 
finite life  is  creation.  And  this 
creative  impulse  finds  expression  in 
living  things  to  whom  is  also  im- 
parted the  creative  impulse.  The  theo- 
logians have  told  us  that  the  Infinite  life 
is  so  perfect  and  so  complete  that  it  does 
not  need  anything  to  add  to  that  complete- 
ness. Still  they  have  felt  the  incongruity 
of  perfect  love  that  has  no  object  but 
itself,  or  a  perfect  wisdom  with  no  one  to 
whom  it  could  be  exhibited.  A  hermit's 
existence  does  not  appeal  to  a  normal  man, 
nor  to  God  as  an  ideal  existence.  Hence 
for  purposes  at  least  of  companionship  in 
the  Infinite  life,  the  theologians  have  given 
us  the  conception  of  a  trinity  in  which  the 
one  God  lives  in  three  expressions  of 
being.  Whatever  may  be  said  pro  or  con, 
this  arrangement  is  a  large  provision  for 
the  social  life  of  God.  It  is  also  the  open- 
ing wedge  for  innumerable  expressions  of 
the  Infinite  life  in  carrying  out  the  crea- 
tive impulse.  For  it  is  not  just  clear  why 
the  number  of  divine  expressions  should 


A     New     Generation  145 

be  limited  to  three,  when  we  find  the 
Infinite  life  providing  for  further  expres- 
sion by  setting  in  motion  innumerable 
agencies  endowed  with  creative  impulse 
and  procreative  power,  all  steadily  moving 
upward  into  more  perfect  forms  of  expres- 
sion until  at  last,  beings  are  evolved  who 
are  "the  brightness  of  his  glory  and  the 
express  image  of  his  person"-— beings 
whom  he  calls  his  sons,  is  not  ashamed  to 
call  them  Brethren,  and  who  shall  be  like 
him  for  the}^  are  one  with  him. 

The  mighty  volume  of  Nature  reveals 
this  process  of  moving  up  from  uncon- 
cious  cell-life  to  conscious  God-life. 
Critically  as  we  try  we  fail  to  find  a  satis- 
factory explanation  of  just  how  all  these 
varying  impulses  seen  in  Nature  arise, 
apart  from  the  idea  of  the  Infinite  life 
pushing  forward  its  creative  impulse  into 
expression.  It  is  true  that  there  are  con- 
flicts in  these  movements,  as  when  the 
moth's  body  obeys  the  universal  impulse 
to  follow  the  head,  and  when  that  head 
is  contracted  to  one  side  by  the  light  shin- 
ing upon  it,  Mr.  Moth  plumps  into  the 
flame  before  the  impulse  of  self-preserva- 
tion can  become  operative.  But  out  of 


U6  The     Voice     Eternal 

such  conflicting  conditions  by  some  pro- 
cess as  "survival  of  the  fittest/7  the 
higher  forms  of  creation  are  reached. 
Now  from  the  lowest  forms  of  life  to  the 
highest  the  creative  impulse  is  inherent 
in  each  form.  Second  only  to  the  impulse 
to  live,  is  the  impulse  to  generate  more 
of  its  kind.  By  some  unerring  instinct 
it  finds  the  conditions  that  are  favorable 
to  that  end,  just  as  the  blue  bottle  fly  does 
not  need  to  be  instructed  as  to  the  com- 
parative values  of  fat  and  lean  meat  in 
the  life  of  his  progeny.  He  may  alight 
anywhere  but  it  is  only  when  his  feet 
touch  the  lean  meat  that  the  generative 
machinery  is  set  going.  Call  it  instinct 
resulting  from  countless  experiences  of 
his  ancestors,  or  some  automatic  stimulus 
from  the  contact  of  his  feet  with  the  lean 
meat,  the  result  is  attained  under  proper 
conditions. 

Probably  the  bird  in  the  forest  cannot 
explain  why,  but  knows  only  that  the 
voice  of  one  charmer  alone  sets  the  thrill 
of  creative  impulse  going  and  hastens  to 
its  mating.  Nor  does  animal  life  under- 
stand the  mystery  of  mating.  It  merely 
obeys  the  creative  impulse  set  in  motion 


A     New     Generation  117 

by  unerring  agencies  expressed  in  sound 
and  color,  and  moves  forward  to  its  con- 
summation; and  it  is  written  that  "not 
one  of  them  shall  lack  her  mate.7' 

And  comparatively  few  human  being 
analyze  the  creative  impulse.  It  is  called 
love  by  poetic  people,  the  grand  passion, 
and  other  names  equally  appropriate ;  and 
its  divine  quality  arises  out  of  this  crea- 
tive impulse  by  which  one  man  and  one 
woman  are  drawn  towards  each  other 
across  continents  and  over  seas  unto  the 
consummation  of  this  divinely-given  im- 
pulse to  produce  a  new  creation.  The 
creative  impulse  within  us  finds  its  nor- 
mal office  in  the  reproduction  of  its  kind, 
and  its  abnormal  expression  is  seen  in 
large  sections  of  our  cities  where  reigns 
an  Inferno  of  wasting,  disease,  and  death 
that  out-Dante's  Dante. 

The  secondary  normal  expressions  of 
the  creative  impulse  are  seen  in  the  marks 
of  man's  creative  skill  in  providing  the 
modern  comforts  of  life,  conveniences  of 
travel,  communication,  learning,  and 
labor.  The  world  owes  a  vast  debt  of 
gratitude  to  such  men  as  George  Ban- 
croft and  such  women  as  Frances  E. 


148  The     Voice     Eternal 

Willard  who  have  laid  aside  the  sex 
expression  of  this  creative  impulse,  and 
turned  all  their  energies  to  the  creation  of 
great  works  and  noble  ideals  of  life.  Let 
it  be  said,  that  for  reasons  known  to 
themselves  they  have  chosen  the  second- 
ary forms  of  creative  expression,  for  the 
sex  reference  is  the  primal  and  distinc- 
tive characteristic  of  this  creative  im- 
pulse. Any  of  us  can  recall  cases  of 
young  men  or  maidens  becoming  religious 
enthusiasts,  with  a  burning  desire  to  save 
mankind,  or  to  enter  the  convent,  or 
become  a  devotee  of  art  or  literature  or 
the  drama,  etc.,  and  in  a  large  percentage 
of  such  cases,  a  happy  marriage  with  the 
crown  of  fatherhood  and  motherhood  has 
put  an  end  to  these  enthusiasms  for  the 
time,  because  life  has  settled  into  its 
chosen  and  normal  channel  of  expression. 
Now  these  early  enthusiasms  are  not 
extinct,  let  us  hope,  for  after  the  repro- 
ductive period  of  life  with  its  cares  and 
vicissitudes  has  passed,  out  of  the  ripe- 
ness of  experience,  and  enrichment  in 
knowledge,  and  deepened  understanding, 
the  creative  impulse  emerges  upward  into 
all  those  noble  forms  of  expression  in  ser- 


A    New     Generation  149 

vice  that  makes  the  later  half  of  life  the 
crown  and  glory  of  manhood  and  woman- 
hood. 

Because  of  this  creative  impulse,  su- 
perb, virile  manhood  and  womanhood  are 
always  marked  by  a  strong  sexual  organi- 
zation, and  those  who  have  wrought  most 
and  best  and  longest  in  the  world  of 
achievement  have  found  that  the  conser- 
vation of  these  creative  sexual  energies 
in  the  body  have  tended  to  re-create  the 
body  itself,  giving  luster  to  the  eye,  reso- 
nance to  the  voice,  vigor  to  the  step,  and 
abounding  energy  and  health  for  the  most 
arduous  undertakings.  It  is  claimed  by 
deep  students  of  the  hidden  forces  within 
us,  that  by  exercising  the  intention,  the 
energies  that  might  be  dissipated  in  sexual 
excitements,  may  be  transmuted  into  a! 
vital  fluid  force  and  carried  throughout 
the  body,  building  it  up,  and  regenerating 
it.  Whatever  truth  the  theory  holds,  one 
has  but  to  know  the  unlimited  command 
that  the  subconscious  mind  has  over  the 
bodily  functions  to  realize  what  a  tre- 
mendous suggestion  lies  in  holding  such  a 
constructive  idea  in  the  mind ;  and  that  it 
will  do  the  work  even  if  the  vital-fluid 


150  The     Voice     Eternal 

theory  be  incorrect.  One  has  only  to  set 
the  mind  to  the  task,  taking  special  times 
to  instruct  the  subconscious  mind  just 
what  we  want  it  to  do,  and  setting  it  to  the 
task  by  the  firm,  unyielding  pressure  of 
the  will,  that  it  may  know  we  intend  to 
accomplish  the  task,  and  the  regeneration 
of  the  body  has  begun  and  will  be  carried 
out  to  its  completion —  a  fit  temple  for  the 
living  spirit  to  dwell  in. 

Now  it  is  also  the  opinion  of  great 
authorities  in  the  medical  world  that  the 
vast  majority  if  not  all  cases  of  nervous 
and  functional  derangements  of  whatever 
form,  arise  out  of  and  have  a  distinct  sex 
reference.  And  these  learned  men  are 
borne  out  in  their  contention  by  any  one 
who  has  had  any  extended  experience  in 
dealing  with  the  steadily  increasing  vol- 
ume of  nervous  cases  coming  up  for  treat- 
ment. Moreover,  they  are  in  substantial 
accord  with  the  most  authoritative  book 
dealing  with  the  history  of  the  human  life 
— the  Bible.  It  would  seem  wise  then  for 
some  voice  to  sound  a  note  of  warning  in 
the  language  of  to-day,  against  the  prodi- 
gal waste  of  energy  by  which  past  and 
present  generations  are  filling  the  world 


A     New     Generation  151 

with  a  race  of  nervous  wrecks;  and  to 
point  out  the  rewards  that  accrue  here  and 
now  to  a  wise  husbanding  of  vital  ener- 
gies, as  the  rational  way  by  which  a  nor- 
mal manhood  and  womanhood  may  be  real- 
ized and  retained,  and  a  new  generation 
may  be  produced. 

If  we  would  have  even  an  approach  to 
the  ideal  manhood  and  wromanhood  in  the 
new  generation,  wye  cannot  continue  to 
practically  ignore  the  volume  of  influence 
that  heredity  pours  into  our  lives.  In  the 
last  analysis  of  life  God  is  the  Author  of 
it  all.  Not  only  is  He  the  " Father  of  the 
spirits  of  all  flesh,"  but  of  the  bodies  as 
we]].  The  body  and  soul  are  parallel  mani- 
festations of  the  spirit  of  life,  and  all 
living  things  take  on  this  dual  character. 
Following  the  biologist  back  to  the  first 
living  cell,  we  have  a  body  and  a  soul. 
When  this  divided  there  were  two  bodies 
and  two  souls,  the  first  body  and  soul 
being  parents  of  the  second  body  and  soul. 
As  this  process  multiplied,  these  cells 
became  organized  into  various  forms  of 
organic  life.  Likewise  the  souls  of  these 
cells  were  co-ordinated  by  a  sort  of  syn- 
thesis into  one  soul  for  the  organic  body. 


152  The    Voice    Eternal 

Inasmuch  as  each  human  body  is  an 
organization  of  many  thousand  trillions 
of  cells  taking  form  in  the  various  organs 
of  the  body,  and  co-ordinating  through 
various  nerve  centers  into  one  supreme 
nerve  center — the  brain — and  so  making 
one  body,  it  also  follows  that  there  are  a 
similar  number  of  cell-souls  organized  into 
departments  corresponding  to  the  organs 
of  the  body,  and  all  synthesized  into  one 
supreme  soul.  Here  let  me  remark  that 
the  value  of  "laying  on  of  hands"  in  the 
healing  of  the  sick  has  been  recognized  in 
all  ages,  not  only  for  the  stimulation  of 
the  nerve  centers  in  the  part  affected,  but 
by  calling  the  attention  of  the  mind  to  that 
part,  and  so  centering  its  activities  there. 
May  it  not  also  be  true  that  when  in  treat- 
ment we  place  the  hand  on,  say  the  stom- 
ach, or  its  controlling  nerve  center,  the 
solar  plexus,  and  direct  that  organ 
to  properly  perform  its  function,  we  are 
in  reality  directing  that  section  of  the  soul 
which  provides  specifically  over  that  or- 
gan, to  do  its  duty  in  restoring  normal 
functioning? 

Now  when  the  first  dual  cell  divided  into 
two,  it  follows  that  the  child  took  on  the 


A    New    Generation  153 

characteristics  of  the  parent  cell,  and 
through  every  variation  and  improvement 
this  law  of  double  hereditary  influence 
held.  It  is  seen  in  the  human  body  in  the 
vestigial  remains  of  certain  outgrown 
organs,  as  the  little  tip  at  the  top  of  th£ 
ear,  the  atrophied  muscle  that  once  moved 
the  ear,  which  some  people  are  still  able  to 
bring  into  action,  the  vermiform  appen- 
dix, and  some  forty  other  insignia  of  our 
animal  ancestry.  As  we  have  admittedly 
carried  over  these  influences  of  our  animal 
ancestry  in  our  bodies,  we  shall  also  expect 
to  find  that  we  have  carried  over  similar 
insignia  of  the  character  of  our  ancestry 
in  our  souls.  Indeed  these  soul  qualities 
are  so  marked  that  man  is  likened  in  the 
Bible  to  more  than  thirty  different  ani- 
mals— the  bear,  the  fox,  the  ass,  the  hog, 
the  peacock,  and  a  good  many  more  we 
have  all  known  going  about  in  human 
form.  Add  to  this  the  further  fact  that  if 
one  traces  his  line  of  descent  backward  to 
the  year  A.  D.  1000,  he  is  the  direct  chan- 
nel for  the  mental  and  physical  influence 
of  sixteen  million  ancestors.  Naturally  the 
influence  decreases  as  the  square  of  the 
distance  of  the  ancestors  increases,  our 


154  The    Voice    Eternal 

immediate  parents  influencing  us  more 
strongly  as  a  rule  than  our  grandparents. 
The  children  of  the  same  parents  often 
differ  radically,  for  the  reason  that  the 
conditions  of  mind,  body,  and  environment 
were  totally  unlike  at  the  time  of  genera- 
tion and  gestation.  In  view  of  this  line 
of  hereditary  influence,  it  is  not  difficult 
to  answer  the  question  why  we  are  what 
wre  are.  Now  heredity  with  the  environ- 
ment it  produces  may  furnish  settings  for 
the  problem  of  life  in  which  we  work  out 
individual  expressions  of  personal  char- 
acter ;  but  the  power  that  worketh  in  us  is 
apart  from  these.  The  divine  spirit  living 
out  its  life  in  us  is  handicapped  by  these 
hereditary  influences  as  it  struggles  to- 
ward perfect  expression.  The  spirit- 
crowned  man  is  the  ideal  that  sets  the  pace 
for  every  man.  We  may  not  choose  our 
ancestry  but  we  may  choose  our  destiny, 
and  in  doing  so,  we  may  so  order  the. 
ancestry  of  our  posterity  as  to  give  it  rad- 
ically different  conditions  under  which  to 
manifest  the  divine  life. 

The  creative  impulse  whose  processes 
have  produced  these  hereditary  conditions, 
is  more  or  less  blind,  moving  in  the  gen- 


A     New     Generation  155 

era!  direction  of  the  reproduction  of  spe- 
cies. Animal  creation  which  is  conceded 
to  be  vastly  superior  to  man  in  its  develop- 
ment of  instinct,  has  shown  itself  sus- 
ceptible of  a  marvelous  improvement  by 
the  use  of  human  reason  in  selecting  males 
and  females  for  the  propagation  of  a  given 
species.  The  vegetable  world  is  eloquent 
with  triumphs  of  intelligent  selection  over 
heredity  by  such  men  as  Burbank.  What 
stockman  would  in  this  day  expose  him- 
self to  the  ridicule  of  his  fellows  by  allow- 
ing his  flocks  and  herds  and  fowls  to  prop- 
agate without  first  eliminating  the  unfit 
of  both  sexes  I  What  horticulturist  would 
trust  his  reputation  or  his  fortune  to  the 
chance  of  " seedlings"  when  grafting  of 
scions  from  better  stock  offers  the  cer- 
tainty of  better  variety  and  quality  ?  That 
the  same  results  may  be  expected  from 
rational  selection  in  the  mating  of  man- 
kind is  seen  in  the  proverb  that  "  blood 
will  tell."  What  then  must  be  said  of  a 
civilization  that  wisely  guides  the  creative 
impulse  in  the  lower  orders  by  eliminating 
the  unfit,  but  reverses  the  order  when  it 
comes  to  the  human  species,  allowing  the 
physically,  mentally,  and  morally  defec- 


156  The     Voice     Eternal 

tive,  the  unsuited  and  the  unsuitable,  to 
multiply  their  kind  ad  infinitum,  placing 
no  sort  of  restraint  on  the  process,  but 
rather  encouraging  it  by  trying  to  make  it 
legally  and  ecclesiastically  impossible  for 
such  unfit  and  unsuitable  pairs  to  end  their 
relations.  If  one-half  the  legal  enactment 
and  energy  now  put  forth  to  keep  such 
misinated  couples  from  getting  apart, 
were  used  to  keep  them  from  getting  to- 
gether in  the  first  place,  humanity  would 
be  better  served.  This  stricture  is  not 
intended  to  condone  the  ever-increasing 
mental  and  moral  epidemic  of  divorce,  but 
rather  to  insist  that  the  portals  of  entry 
to  matrimony  and  the  parenthood  should 
be  at  least  as  strenuously  guarded  as  are 
its  exits.  It  is  beyond  the  purpose  of  this 
chapter  to  even  suggest  methods,  but 
rather  to  arouse  conviction;  for  let  the 
seriousness  of  the  need  become  apparent, 
humanity  will  find  the  best  way,  and  a 
tremendous  stride  will  be  taken  toward  the 
new  generation  of  a  superior  race  of  God- 
like men  and  women. 

The  ideal  generation  awaits  not  only  a 
procession  of  rational  selection  under  the 
supervision  of  calm  judgment  rather  than 


A     New     Generation  157 

blind  passion,  but  it  is  still  further 
deferred  by  the  culpable  ignorance  of 
prospective  parents  concerning  the  influ- 
ence of  nervous,  mental,  and  moral  states 
upon  the  unconceived  and  the  unborn.  Out 
of  three  sections  of  moral  monstrosity — 
murder,  adultery,  and  theft — which  have 
shown  an  alarmingly  increasing  volume, 
let  us  study  the  first  for  a  moment  and  no 
doubt  can  remain  as  to  the  influence  of 
prenatal  states.  Take  a  case  from  the 
criminal  docket  where  a  boy  of  nineteen 
killed  his  mother  and  father.  Society  pro- 
ceeded to  murder  him  legally  for  illegally 
murdering  his  parents,  forgetting  that  he 
was  an  unwelcome  child  whom  his  mother 
had  wanted  to  murder  and  perhaps  tried 
to  do  so  before  he  was  born.  In  the  vast 
majority  of  such  cases  the  facts  are  not 
available,  but  when  they  do  become  known 
they  leave  no  possible  room  for  doubt  as 
to  the  truth  and  pertinency  of  a  proverb 
from  a  very  old  book,  viz.,  "The  parents 
have  eaten  sour  grapes  and  the  children's 
teeth  are  set  on  edge."  In  addition  to  these 
prenatal  influences,  and  those  of  legal  kill- 
ing by  the  state,  recall  also  the  age-long 
effects  of  war  which  has  killed  a  billion 


158  The    Voice     Eternal 

and  a  half  of  people  since  the  song  "  Peace 
on  earth"  was  first  sung,  and  which  has 
created  a  spirit  of  wholesale  murder  that 
is  still  fostered  by  the  cultivation  of  the 
spirit  of  militarism.  Grant  that  the  dis- 
tracted mother  had  extenuating  circum- 
stances for  her  thought  and  act ;  and  that 
the  state  is  justified  in  taking  the  life  of 
the  killer;  and  that  the  nation  may  cele- 
brate the  slaughter  of  the  enemy  that 
threatened  its  integrity,  we  nevertheless 
face  the  fact  that  all  these  have  fostered 
a  disregard  for  the  sanctity  of  human  life, 
and  have  created  a  world- wide  atmosphere 
of  thought  through  the  agency  of  the  press 
that  daily  spreads  out  the  harrowing  de- 
tails of  murder,  leaving  in  the  minds  of 
the  susceptible  a  residuum  out  of  which 
further  murders  are  born.  Happily  a  cru- 
sade for  a  cleaner  press,  a  better  inform- 
ing education,  offers  hope.  Students  of 
criminology  are  setting  the  motive  of  pen- 
ology away  from  vengeance  on  the  crim- 
inal in  the  direction  of  rational  restraint 
and  treatment  of  the  mentally,  morally, 
and  nervously  deformed  sections  of  society 
who  have  heretofore  been  given  short 
shrift,  while  arbitration  is  proving  that 


A     New     Generation  159 

right  makes  might  among  men  rather  than 
that  might  makes  right. 

Now  while  the  influence  of  heredity  and 
the  thought  atmosphere  in  which  we  live 
must  be  put  to  rights  in  the  interest  of  a 
new  generation,  we  must  not  lose  sight  of 
our  divine  birthright  in  whose  infinite 
power  we  are  able  to  overcome  all  these 
adverse  influences.  It  is  no  unusual  phe- 
nomenon for  a  man  who  for  half  of  his 
life  has  lent  himself  to  dissipation,  to  such 
a  degree  that  it  seemed  a  disease  or  obses- 
sion, who  had  110  higher  ideals,  and  the  lack 
of  will  power  or  disposition  to  attain  them 
if  he  had  them,  yet  into  such  a  life  came 
the  great  love  of  a  noble  woman,  the  mem- 
ory of  a  mother 's  prayer  and  life,  brought 
back  by  song  or  story  or  providence, 
or  the  revelation  of  the  moral  per- 
fections of  the  Eternal  God  through 
the  lips  of  a  prophet  or  the  life  of 
a  saint,  and  lo,  there  has  come  a  revulsion 
of  feeling,  and  the  birth  of  new  mental  and 
spiritual  ideals  and  motives  that  have  car- 
ried with  them  a  corresponding  reaction  in 
his  physical  nature,  restoring  his  nervous 
organism  to  its  normal  condition,  making 
his  after-life  as  healthy  as  it  was  formerly 


160  The     Voice    Eternal 

diseased.  Now  men  explain  such  a  phe- 
nomenon in  various  ways,  but  it  is  the  way 
of  the  Infinite  Life  righting  a  wrong  condi- 
tion and  restoring  a  man  to  his  standing  as 
a  conscious  son  of  God — a  new  generation 
with  possession  of  all  the  powers  and  priv- 
ileges that  consciousness  of  oneness  with 
God  imparts  to  a  man. 

Such  a  miracle  of  grace  is  cause  for 
endless  gratitude  to  God,  but  the  stubborn 
fact  remains  that  such  a  case  is  the  excep- 
tion and  not  the  rule,  and  that  the  good 
God  puts  the  responsibility  of  a  new  gen- 
eration on  us.  We  must  create  heredities, 
and  environments,  and  a  worthy  ancestry 
for  our  posterity.  Then  only  will  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  be  fully  established  on  the 
earth. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

EMOTIONAL    CHEMISTRY. 

THOUGHT  forces  are  creative.  Es- 
pecially when  they  are  born  in  the 
emotional  nature.  "As  a  man  thinketh 
in  his  heart  so  is  he."  So  he  looks,  so  he 
acts,  so  he  feels,  so  he  is.  We  have  all 
quoted  the  Master's  words,  "Keep  thy 
heart  with  all  diligence,  for  out  of  it  are 
the  issues  of  life,"  but  we  have  perhaps 
never  thought  how  profound  an  influence 
the  affectional  and  emotional  nature  has 
upon  the  health  as  well  as  the  character 
of  men.  Desires  born  in  our  affections 
and  emotions  do  color  our  thinking,  give 
wings  to  our  imaginations,  bias  our  judg- 
ments, and  influence  our  wills.  We  accept 
the  facts  but  do  not  suspect  the  subtle 
chemistry  by  which  sure  and  certain  path- 
ological changes  are  wrought  in  the  chem- 
ical secretions  of  the  body,  as  a  result  of 
our  emotions. 

Such  emotions  as  Anger,  Fear,  Jeal- 
ousy, Hatred,  Worry,  the  Blues,  and  all 
the  dark  passions  change  the  alkaline  se- 
cretions to  acid,  and  the  acid  to  alkaline, 
and  fill  the  body  with  subtle  poisons  which 


162  The     Voice     Eternal 

affect  unfavorably  all  the  tissues,  for  the 
nourishing  elements  for  the  cells  are  in- 
complete, the  nerves  are  starved,  and  the 
whole  system  becomes  depleted,  and  this 
lowered  vitality  invites  all  sorts  of  germs 
to  come  in  and  take  up  their  abode  and 
multiply.  Our  knowledge  of  emotional 
chemistry  is  yet  in  its  infancy,  but  we  do 
know  that  sudden  bad  news  takes  away 
the  appetite,  causes  fainting,  and  other 
physical  ills.  We  know  that  anger  is  fol- 
lowed by  headache,  lassitude,  and  weak- 
ness. We  know  that  fear  temporarily 
paralyzes  the  nerve  centers  of  the  stomach 
and  heart;  while  hurry  and  worry  and 
others  burn  up  the  nervous  energies,  leav- 
ing only  clinkers  and  slag  to  irritate  the 
nerves.  Cases  are  on  record  showing  that 
a  violent  fit  of  anger  in  a  nursing  mother 
caused  poisonous  secretions  in  her  milk 
which  threw  the  baby  into  spasms.  The 
perspiration  and  saliva  show  chemical  re- 
action so  that  it  is  possible  to  detect  the 
particular  emotion  that  held  sway  at  the 
time  the  secretion  was  made. 

Every  mental  healer  is  familiar  with  the 
occasional  cases  arising  in  his  healing 
ministry  in  which  the  patient  was  per- 


Emotional     Chemistry  163 

ceptibly  worse  after  the  first  treatment, 
owing  to  the  conflict  between  the  old 
chemical  forces  caused  by  the  wrong 
methods  of  thinking  and  the  new  chemis- 
try, caused  by  the  new  and  healing  truth. 

The  ancient  Stigmatists,  in  their  long- 
ing to  reproduce  in  their  own  bodies  the 
physical  marks  of  the  crucifixion  believed 
that  they  could,  and  persisted  in  their  as- 
cetic and  rigorous  exercises  until  they 
actually  succeeded  in  causing  the  stigmata 
to  appear  in  hands,  feet  and  side.  And 
this  emotional  chemistry  is  the  secret  of 
their  success.  And  this  sort  of  morbid 
emotional  thinking  is  able  to  cause  such 
alterations  of  tissue  as  to  defy  the  elect 
physician  to  tell  whether  a  disease  is  or- 
ganic or  functional.  Keep  it  up  and  you 
will  secrete  enough  poison  to  keep  the 
body  filled  with  disease,  and  " enjoy  poor 
health"  all  your  days. 

The  old  metaphysicians  conceived  the 
idea  that  disease  had  its  origin  in  unwhole- 
some emotions,  for  they  prepared  a  long 
list  of  ills  with  their  emotional  causes. 
For  instance,  covetousness  or  impatience 
would  cause  bad  breath ;  doubt,  fear,  etc., 
would  produce  asthma;  hot  temper  and 


164  The    Voice     Eternal 

jealousy  produced  boils,  and  so  on  through 
a  long  list  of  the  various  ills  that  found 
their  correspondence  in  some  mental  state. 
Now  one  would  not  care  to  subscribe  to 
that  whole  list,  but  they  were  grasping  at 
the  truth  that  ill  thoughts  do  cause  a 
change  in  the  chemical  secretions  of  the 
body  and  so  open  it  to  the  attacks  of  all 
sorts  of  disease.  An  evil  mentality  with 
its  wrong  thought  habits  will  throw  the 
whole  body  into  the  wrong  kind  of  chem- 
istry and  make  it  a  shining  mark  for  all 
sorts  of  ills. 

Now  if  a  momentary  spasm  of  anger  or 
other  evil  passion  can  produce  such  effects 
as  are  apparent  in  the  lives  of  multitudes, 
what  must  be  the  effect  on  the  bodies  of 
those  who  live  in  one  perpetual  spasm  of 
anger,  fear,  worry,  jealousy  and  the  like? 
They  are  filled  with  deadly  poisons  and 
ought  to  carry  a  red  light  in  front  of  them 
as  the  old  drug  stores  used  to  do.  It  really 
isn't  necessary,  for  as  a  man  thinketh  in 
his  heart  so  he  looks.  You  can  tell  him  as 
far  as  you  can  see  him. 

Think  of  the  effects  on  the  life  of  one 
who  has  lost  friends,  to  clothe  himself 
in  black  and  keep  the  insignia  of  sorrow 


Emotional     Chemistry  165 

ever  before  them  and  others  and  be  com- 
pelled to  live  up  to  it,  and  constantly  whet 
the  keen  edge  of  grief,  by  these  heathen 
signs  of  sorrow.  When  I  pass  out,  if  my 
friends  respect  my  feelings  and  faith  they 
will  all  wear  white,  for  the  Christian  hope 
is  the  whitest  light  this  world  has  ever 
seen. 

Comparatively  little  has  been  done  to 
determine  the  chemistry  of  right  thinking, 
although  the  praises  of  cheerfulness  have 
been  sung  to  every  sort  of  time  and  tune. 
Few  people  know  or  really  care  just  how 
one  material  substance  will  start  or  stop 
the  chemical  action  of  another  material 
substance.  All  they  care  to  know  is  that 
every  poison  has  its  antidote.  But  they 
need  to  know  this  very  minute  that  there  is 
a  law  of  mental  and  spiritual  chemistry 
by  which  every  passion  that  disturbs  the 
poise  of  the  soul,  upsets  the  mind,  and  fills 
the  body  with  disease  has  its  antidote,  and 
that  the  great  trinity  of  spiritual  poten- 
cies abide  under  the  label  of  FAITH, 
HOPE  and  LOVE.  Over  against  your 
anger  and  all  its  horrid  brood  put  LOVE. 
Replace  hurry,  worry  and  anxiety  with 
HOPE.  Instead  of  fear  put  calm  confi- 


166  The     Voice     Eternal 

dence  in  the  unfailing  goodness  of  your 
Heavenly  Father,  and  in  your  own  ability 
to  achieve  what  you  undertake,  and  these 
will  set  the  chemical  secretions  right  and 
fill  the  body  with  ease,  health,  and  power 
and  make  living  a  perpetual  joy.  For  you 
will  become  in  body,  mind,  and  spirit  a 
tangible  expression  of  the  emotional  state 
in  which  your  soul  lives.  Therefore,  if 
you  will  have  your  body  filled  with  sensa- 
tions of  health,  sweetness,  and  power,  fill 
your  emotional  life  with  faith-emotions, 
hope-emotions,  love-emotions,  for  these 
stimulate  the  right  chemistry,  and  the 
greatest  of  these  is  love,  for  it  is  the  most 
far-reaching,  contagious  thing  in  the 
world.  For  it  blesses  the  giver  until  "out 
of  his  heart  shall  flow  rivers  of  living  wa- 
ter," and  it  blesses  the  receiver,  for  he 
becomes  eventually  an  artesian  well  to  re- 
fresh the  weary  passer-by  with  his  testi- 
mony. 

It  must  be  said  here  that  we  have  not  yet 
solved  the  secret  of  how  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
set  up  such  chemical  changes  in  the  bodies 
of  men  as  to  heal  all  sorts  of  diseases,  but 
it  probably  lies  in  the  fact  that  we  do  not 


Emotional     Chemistry  167 

do  it  because  we  do  not  believe  we  can  do 
it.  But  we  shall  know  the  meaning  of  this 
divine  chemistry,  and  the  time  ought  to 
come  when  we  shall  know  how  to  call  upon 
these  divine  agencies  with  such  a  sense  of 
mastery,  that  we  shall  produce  a  civiliza- 
tion that  shall  have  no  moral  and  no  dis- 
ease-death rate,  and  "  whose  inhabitants 
shall  never  say  *I  am  sick.' 

(Reprinted  from  The  Emmanuel  Press.) 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

FORMULAS     AND     AFFIRMATIONS     FOR     SELF- 
HELP. 

THE  way  to  self-mastery  is  so  plain 
that  the  wayfaring  man,  though  a 
fool  need  not  err  therein.  The  following 
formula  is  a  workable  statement  of  the 
forces  that  bring  things  to  pass.  Its  par- 
allel with  the  spiritual  philosophy  of  life 
is  perfect.  You  need  not  spend  years  of 
time  and  dollars  in  money  for  lessons. 
Just  take  hold  of  the  handles  of  this  men- 
tal battery  and  hold  on  until  its  full  power 
gets  into  operation.  Something  will  hap- 
pen. You  will  learn  how  to  help  yourself. 
There  are  four  factors  in  the  formula : 

1.  The  IDEAL.  It  matters  not 
whether  it  be  perfect  health,  or  personal 
influence  and  power  among  men,  or  pros- 
perity in  your  material  affairs.  Just  fill 
out  the  picture  mentally.  Imagine  your- 
self as  in  the  possession  of  this  ideal.  Pic- 
ture yourself  as  being  surrounded  by 
every  feature  of  your  ideal.  Don't  affirm 
that  you  are  when  as  yet  you  are  not,  but 
build  an  air  castle  as  complete  as  your 
imagination  can  finish  it,  and  then  go  in 


Formulas    for    Self -Help        169 

and  take  mental  possession  of  it.    Do  this 
seven  times  a  day. 

II.  The  DESIRE.     Earnestly  desire 
the  reality  of  your  ideal.    Wishing  a  thing 
to  be  true  is  the  first  step  to  believing  that 
it  can  be  true,  and  that  is  next  to  willing 
that  it  shall  be  true.    Earnestly  desire  it 
for  your  own  comfort  and  success.    Wish 
it  to  be  real  for  the  good  you  may  be  able 
to  do  unto  others.    Long  for  it  that  you 
may  more  fully  express  the  divine  life  in 
you,  and  so  honor  the  God  "  whose  you  are 
and  whom  you  serve."     And  in  another 
word  this  is  prayer,  for  "  Prayer  is  the 
soul's    sincere    desire,    uttered    or    un- 
expressed.7' 

III.  The  BELIEF.    Earnestly  believe 
in  the  " power  that  is  within  both  to  will 
and  to  do."    Take  that  power  into  your 
confidence.  You  trust  it  to  keep  your  heart 
beating,  your  blood  circulating,  the  diges- 
tive and  assimilative  processes  going,  and 
in  fact  you  leave  to  it  in  perfect  confidence 
all  the  metabolism  or  changes  to  be  made 
in  the  body  without  a  doubt  as  to  the  out- 
come. You  lie  down  to  sleep  at  night  with- 
out a  question  that  it  will  keep  your  heart 
beating.    If  you  had  an  idea  that  it  would 


170  The    Voice     Eternal 

stop  during  the  night  you  wouldn't  sleep  a 
wink  that  night.  Now  if  you  can  put  so 
much  confidence  in  this  hidden  intelligent 
force  inside  you,  just  pull  out  one  more 
stop,  and  believe  that  it  will  do  these  things 
just  as  you  want  them  done.  Intelligently 
direct  it  to  do  things  just  as  you  want  them 
done,  instead  of  some  haphazard  way,  and 
you  will  find  that  it  will  keep  the  confi- 
dence inviolable.  "According  to  your 
faith  it  shall  be  done  unto  you." 

IV.  The  WILL.  This  is  the  directing 
agent.  It  comes  next  in  order,  for,  '  '  Faith 
laughs  at  impossibilities,  and  cries,  'it 
shall  be  done. '  Every  force  in  your  life 
and  outside  of  it  pivots  finally  on  your 
will.  "Be  it  unto  thee  even  as  thou  wilt" 
makes  "all  power  in  heaven  and  in  earth," 
subject  to  that  will.  You  can  be  anything 
you  believe  you  can  be  and  that  you  will 
to  be.  Will  is  the  creative  power.  It  takes 
the  unseen  things  and  makes  them  appear 
to  the  eyes  or  other  senses.  It  takes  your 
ideals  and  erects  them  into  realities. 

Follow  then  this  formula,  and  it  will 
bring  strength  out  of  weakness,  ease  out  of 
disease,  plenty  out  of  penury,  and  personal 
power  out  of  impotence. 

(Reprinted  from  The  Emmanuel  Press.) 


Formulas    for    Self-Help        171 


AFFIRMATIONS. 

For    CHAPTER    I. 

All  Life  is  One. 

I  am  an  expression  of  that  one  life. 
I  am  one  with  infinite  life. 
Infinite  life  dwells  in  me  and  fills  ine  with 
health,  peace,  and  plenty. 

CHAPTER  II. 

I  live  out  my  life  in  the  life  of  God. 
God  lives  out  his  life  in  me. 
I  will  now  manifest  the  life  of  God  in  perfect 
health,  peace,  and  plenty. 

CHAPTER  HI. 

I  will  now  move  up  into  a  higher  expression 

of  the  divine  life. 
I  accept  pain  as  a  growing  pain  calling  me  up 

to  higher  manifestation  of  life. 
I  am  one  with  love  that  casteth  out  fear. 

CHAPTER   IV. 

I  identify  my  life  now  with  the  life  of  God. 
I  am  One  with  God. 
I  can  do  all  things  through  Christ. 
I  will  now  manifest  divine  peace,  health,  and 
plenty. 

CHAPTER  V. 

I  believe  in  one  God,  the  infinite  spirit. 


172  The    Eternal    Voice 


The  life  of  the  spirit  is  imparted  to  me  every 

moment. 
I  accept  every  material  thing  as  an  expression 

of  the  spirit  in  material  form. 
My  body  receives  life  from  the  spirit's  life  in 

material  forms. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

I  am  health,  peace,  power,  plenty. 

I  will  dispel  fear  with  love. 

Weakness  shall  flee  before  the  idea  of  power, 

I  will  forget  my  troubles  by  helping  others. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

The  limitless  life  of  God  is  in  me. 

I  will  trust  and  not  be  afraid. 

I  will  to  be  well,  happy,  and  prosperous. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

"I  believe  in  love  almighty,  maker  of  heaven 

on  earth." 

My  hope  is  in  God  who  dwelleth  in  me. 
I  will  steadfastly  trust  to  the  end. 

CHAPTER   IX. 

Christ  is  all  in  all  to  me. 

Christ  is  health,  strength,  peace,  plenty. 

Christ  dwelleth  in  me. 

I  will  now  manifest  Christ. 


Formulas    for    Self -Help        173 

CHAPTER  X. 

All  power  is  given  me  by  the  spirit. 
He  that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father. 
The  spirit  manifests  the  things  of  Christ  in 
me. 

CHAPTER  XL 

I  am  the  master  of  the  house.    I  am  the 

architect. 

My  subconscious  is  the  servant,  the  builder. 
He  shall  build  my  plans,   and  report  only 

normal  sensation. 
My  body  is  the  temple  of  God.    It  shall  be 

clean  and  well. 
I  will  honor  God  by  living  in  perfect  health. 


Foster  &  Short,   342  Howard  St.,  S.  F. 


The  How  and  Why  of 
The  Emmanuel  Movement 

By 
THOMAS  PARKER  BOYD 

An  analysis  of  the  mental  forces  that  make  for 
health.  It  tells  just  how  to  use  them  and  what  may 
be  expected  to  result  from  their  right  use.  It  is  a 
great  book  on  a  great  subject,  and  in  the  language  of 
the  common  people. 

It  has  been  praised  by  hundreds  of  enthusiastic 
readers. 

It  will  be  sent  postpaid  for  $1.00. 

Address  all  orders  to  THE  EMMANUEL  PRESS, 
Berkeley,  Cal. 


The  Emmanuel  Press 

Edited  by 
THOMAS  PARKER  BOYD 

Devoted  to  the  fine  Art  of  being  well. 

A  live   wire   among  New   Thought  magazines. 

The  purpose  of  the  magazine  is  to  create  a  literature 
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It  aims  to  conserve  the  things  that  are  good,  and  to 
teach  a  rational  and  spiritual  philosophy  of  human  well 
being,  to  harmonize  the  old  and  new  and  to  lay  em- 
phasis on  the  whole  truth  instead  of  a  single  phase 
of  it. 

It  teaches  the  harmonious  use  of  spiritual,  mental, 
and  material  means,  and  advocates  the  clergyman,  the 
psychologist,  and  the  doctor  as  being  God's  men  and 
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